The Shepherdess of Siena: A Novel of Renaissance Tuscany (46 page)

I wiped the fat black flies out of my eyes, my nostrils. They clung to my temples and tickled my legs. I felt the slick maggots working the donkey flesh resting against the back of my calf.

My flesh still lives. Surely they will not feed on me!

In that suffocating heat, each breath was more of a coffin then of life.

Breathe, Virginia. All you have to do is keep still and keep breathing, he said.

This man who had caused such sorrow and suffering. This same man I was forced to trust now.

What did he see in that painting, damn his soul! For a moment I thought all was lost.

I could never forgive him. But what other chance did I have?

I thought of the sweet kisses, warm from Riccardo’s lips. The world outside the convent. Giorgio! Cesare, my padrino!

And most of all, Orione. Padrino will have cured him, nursed him back to health! My padrino could cure any horse, surely.

They all awaited me in Siena. My fate was in di Torreforte’s hands.

Will he kill me as a last oath to Granduca Francesco? Was his task to wash clean any remaining stain of his treachery?

My blood suddenly ran cold.

Jump! Jump before he slits my throat!

The ropes were tight on the thick canvas tarp, weighing heavily on my shoulders, and the reek of putrid donkey made me swallow the acid in my throat.

I sought an airhole to breathe, my fingers working desperately against the oiled cloth and rope.

“God protect you, Virginia Tacci,” whispered Anna Rosa. Her fingers wiggled through the tarp, finding mine.

“Thank you. Good-bye, my friend.”

I could hear a choking sob. Her fingers squeezed mine, and she whisked her hand away.

“You were my only friend,” she said, her voice low. “I will never forget you. I shall pray for you every day—”

Every day.

I no longer wanted to jump out. I thought of the long days of convent life, endless prayers eight times a day. Where do those prayers go? Do they drift up to God and heaven, like the incense the priest swings from his brass pan? Or do they vanish like the mists that shroud the town, disappearing as the sun burns them into oblivion?

There was indeed suffering beyond the walls of this convent. The hovels of the city, infested with plague and marsh fever. The louse-infested orphans of Maria della Scala, begging for bread. The poor farmers whose families chewed roots and bone-broth soup when their crops failed. But along with that suffering, there was life. And I needed to live.

I hoped that for her sake, Anna Rosa could finally find peace in God’s service within these convent walls, as Suor Loretta had.

But I could not.

“I will never forget you,” Anna Rosa said again.

Nor will I ever forget you.

Under the foul decay of the donkey, I smelled Anna Maria’s familiar odor in her nun’s habit, which I now wore. I wondered how long it would take the near-sighted abbess to realize that under my dirty white kerchief was the head of Suor Anna Rosa, cousin to the duca.

I thought of the conversa Margherita, puckering her lips in dismay as she pummeled the dirty kerchief against a rock in the river Po. Once the stains were washed away, it would cover some other postulant’s head. Over and over again, until it was relegated as a rag to rub beeswax into the choir seats, and finally to wipe clean the chamber pots.

Would the conversa ever think of me again? Did she ever believe me when I told her my true identity?

“May God guide you back home, Virginia. To Siena,” said my friend.

I closed my eyes tight, trying to remember the smoky smell of winter fires, the aroma of fresh hay–cut fields, and the warm scent of horses. I thought of the rippling fields of red poppies in the Senese spring, the tolling of the clock of the Torre del Mangia. The songs of the contradas, starting with the one lone male voice, singing in the darkness.

Nella Piazza del Campo
. . .

I moved my lips, singing silently.

. . .
ci nasce la verbena.

Viva la nostra Siena,

viva la nostra Siena!

I heard the driver cluck to his horses and felt the shudder of the wagon. My head thumped against the donkey’s stiff leg as we rumbled forward across the cobblestones of Ferrara.

The horsemaster accompanied the flatbed wagon to the duca’s stables. There the driver and his lackeys unloaded Fedele’s carcass. They pulled the donkey by its tail toward an open grave, where the diggers still sweated, finishing their work. The creases of their brows were lined black with dirt.

They must have been warned not to look at me, for not once did I see a servant cast a glance in my direction as I slipped off the side of the wagon.

I turned away. The tugging caused the poor creature’s body to pour forth excrement and deep yellow piss.

No, I would not watch. This donkey had saved my life. I would preserve his memory with dignity. He was not a horse, he could not help it.

But he was my savior.

“The duca instructed me to speak with you,” said the horsemaster. “I speak with his voice. What has transpired here can never be spoken of. You are free, but not to return to the same life.”

“What do you mean?” I said. I could smell my own sweat obliterating the smell of the gentle Anna Rosa.

“You can return to Siena’s regions, but not to Siena itself. If anyone should learn that you were confined to a convent, then released, with both de’ Medici and d’Este assistance, we would have the Pope’s armies at our gates. Neither Granduca Ferdinando nor Duca Alfonso want to bring Rome north to battle us.”

“But I—”

“Should you share your secrets, you ensure the trial and death of this man who sacrificed so much to save you,” said the horsemaster, gesturing at di Torreforte, who stood just behind him.

“But he was the cause of all my suffering!” I hissed. “Why should he not suffer, too?”

“You are not one to forgive, are you, Virginia Tacci?” said the horsemaster. “The convent did not cultivate a willingness to pardon sins?”

“To the fiery inferno with forgiveness! I will never,
ever
forgive him. My youth, my life—my horse! Every dream I ever had—snatched from me!”

Giacomo di Torreforte winced. He came nearer, wary of my fists.

“Do you think for a moment that Siena has forgotten you?” he said. “Forgotten your Palio? How you stayed up on that stallion, despite his spectacular fall, racing him to the finish?”

“I
lost
,” I said. “I came in third. I wanted to race again—and win! You robbed me of that chance!”

“I did what I had to do to save your life. And Siena will always remember your spirit. You
won
, Virginia Tacci.”

But I remembered what he had done.

“And the boards? Thrown on the street in front of Orione? You were there at Via del Capitano—I saw you right before Orione fell!”

“They were thrown from the rooftop. I shouted at the villains! There was nothing I could do.”

The horsemaster held up his hand, demanding our attention.

“Virginia. Understand well. The condition of your release is this: while you may return to Siena’s countryside, you may never enter its gates. By the decree of Duca Alfonso II.”

“But—not enter Siena again in my life?”

“There is a delicate arrangement here between two dukes, sworn enemies. Both stand to lose much. The pope would like nothing more than to seize Ferrara as a papal state.

“You must swear to remain outside of Siena for the rest of your life. And to never again be known as Virginia Tacci.” His voice was deadly serious. “Or I will personally return you to the convent myself this minute. Do you swear to the duca’s conditions?”

I stared at the man, dressed in his fine livery. “Never enter the gates of Siena?”

“You may never approach any closer than Corsano,” said the horsemaster. “You can see the city from a distance from the Crete hills.”

“But! Never to—what if someone recognizes me in the Crete?”

“Forgive me, Virginia,” said di Torreforte. “The many years in the convent have—changed your looks. And you are a woman now, not a fourteen-year-old villanella. Only your closest friends would recognize you now. Perhaps.”

My hand reached to touch my face. I had not looked at my face for over a decade. There was no looking glass in the convent.

“I cannot—I cannot contact my friends? What of Giorgio, of Cesare—my godfather? My uncle!”

The horsemaster slid his eyes toward Giacomo. “Signor di Torreforte, this is for you to tell,” he said.

The words were dry parchment on di Torreforte’s lips. I watched him try to speak.

“Tell me!” I said.

“Virginia,” he said. “Siena has changed, too.”

I held his eyes. They had shifted color to a dark, moody green, as when a cloud passes over the water in stream.

“What do you mean, changed
?”

His face contracted as if he had a severe headache. I saw the muscles move in his throat as he swallowed.

“There is a place for you, Virginia. I will take you back to Corsano, where our family raises Palio horses in the Crete. On the road toward Monteroni d’Arbia.”

“No! I want to go back to Vignano. I want to see my zio, my padrino, Giorgio, Contessa d’Elci—”

Di Torreforte put his hand on my shoulder. I let it rest there, testing its weight.

“Virginia,” he said. “They are all
. . .
gone.”

I tried to focus on his face, but it suddenly blurred into jagged fragments.

All the people I loved, blown away like the dry leaves in winter.

I had never had a chance to thank them
.

“No!”

The horsemaster closed his eyes. His horse fidgeted under him. The rider stroked his fingers through his mane.

“My presence here was Giorgio’s last wish,” said di Torreforte, his words suddenly spilling from his lips. “If he is not dead already, he will be soon.”

My tears, hot on my cheeks, astounded me. I touched my fingers to the wetness in wonder.

“You cannot return to Vignano. You might be recognized there. Your aunt, the village priest. Your cousins.”

“It will be better for you,” the horsemaster said softly. “A new start, a new identity. Signor di Torreforte can care for you in Corsano, where so many Palio winners are born. I have bought horses from Signor di Torreforte for the Duca d’Este’s stable—they are indeed magnificent. You will recover your spirit through the horses. All true horsemen do.”

“Women,” I said. “I am a horse
woman.”

“Sì, fantina,”
said the horsemaster. “You have indeed earned that.”

Giacomo dared to pull me closer. “Virginia. You could dress as a young man and ride. No one will know the difference. There is no reason—”

I pushed him away. I looked up at them both, these two men who talked nonsense. I wiped the burning tears from my eyes, only to have more appear.

“I am not a boy,” I said. “I am Virginia Tacci.”

C
HAPTER
100

Siena, Brunelli Stables, Vignano

A
UGUST
1591

No one noticed the horse and rider slip out into the darkness. A light rain muffled the hoofbeats on the muddy road as they cut south and west across the hills.

By the time they reached the edge of the Crete hills, the sky had cleared and the moon blazed on the eastern horizon, throwing long shadows in front of the crippled rider and his stumbling mare.

For a Senese, there was no more sacred country than the Crete. Its expanses and rolling hills were the unobstructed view of the unfettered, indomitable spirit that was Siena.

Stella wanted to run. Weak though she was, her spirit was strong. Giorgio felt her prancing step, though every so often she lost her footing, almost buckling to the ground. Still, the night air fed the mare’s spirit; the wide, never-ending fields of the Crete invigorated her.

“Not just yet,” said Giorgio, wincing. He pulled the mare down from a canter to an extended trot. Stella had lost muscle along her backbone, making a painful ride for the sick man as her sharp bones cut into his buttocks.

Giorgio turned the horse on the crest of a hill, just outside the village of Corsano, and looked back to Siena. There was no finer view of the city, set on three hills, rinsed in the bleached light of the rising moon. He rode to a single cypress tree where a swelling breast of disturbed earth mounded a grave.

“Babbo
—”
he whispered. But he could not say any more as tears gushed from his eyes.

Giorgio turned away from the cypress and removed his cap. He looked across the rolling hills to the city of Siena. “They will never forget you, Virginia,” he said. “Nor will we.”

He spurred Stella into a breakneck gallop, descending the hill recklessly through the dark. A reckless gallop toward a steep ravine. Deep enough to kill a horse—and a rider, too, especially one who was half-dead already.

C
HAPTER
101

En route from Ferrara to Siena

A
UGUST
1591

The unmarked coach whisked us away from Ferrara. Giacomo rode beside the coachman, whether to avoid me or the stench emanating from my close encounter with the dead donkey, I did not know or care.

I bathed that night in scalding hot water in a shallow wooden tub in the village of Malabergo. The innkeeper’s wife was paid extra to bring oil soap and a reed brush to scour my skin. Giacomo had purchased a few simple linen blouses and skirts for me, and a pair of leather slippers. They had been delivered to my room in an oak chest.

The woman who bathed me must have been paid a pretty coin, for she said nothing about my stench, the nun’s habit, or the Tuscan signore who paid for my lodging. She bundled the clothes together and delivered them to Giacomo’s room—along with me, in light blue linen. My hair was still wet from the bath; my skin stung red and raw from the scrubbing.

“Grazie,” said Giacomo, nodding curtly to her. “That is all.”

After she had closed the door, Giacomo threw Anna Rosa’s habit into the fire.

“You look a damned sight better than you did a few hours ago,” he said, stabbing savagely at the burning cloth with an iron poker. A whiff of the pestilent fabric, smoking and acrid, assailed my nostrils. I covered my nose.

“I suspect I smell better, too.” I said, watching the garment turn to ash. I walked over to the window, opening the shutters. It rained quietly outside, mist rising slowly from the earth, shrouding the town.

I looked at the table, laid with a cloth, a roasted chicken, and savory dishes still steaming. A jug of wine was filled to the brim. The smell of herb-roasted fowl and crisp pancetta made my knees weak. I closed my eyes, breathing in the aroma.

“I thought we should eat. You must be famished.”

“I am used to it. Hunger is a virtue in the convent, gluttony a sin.”

He said nothing but pulled the chair out for me.

“We will fatten you up again, Virginia Tacci,” he said. “Regain your strength so you can ride colts again!”

I did not know how to respond. I sat across from the man who had brought such bitter sadness into my life. Giacomo di Torreforte had stolen a decade from my life, a decade during which all the people I had ever loved had perished.

Now he had intervened to free me from my prison.

“I do not owe you anything, Signor di Torreforte,” I said, twisting my napkin in my hands. “I do not know why you have saved me, why you risk so much to take me back to Siena. How you convinced a de’ Medici to align with a d’Este. What advantage do you seek?”

Giacomo drew a deep breath, settling into his chair. He looked at me and then back at the fire.

“I have caused you irreparable pain and sorrow. I know this.”

“I will not tell you sweet tales, Signor di Torreforte,” I said. “I will never forget your treachery. I am your worst enemy—”

He put up his hand, stopping my speech. For second, I thought he was going to strike me.

“I think you have painted a very clear picture for me, Virginia. No further elaboration is needed. And I indeed have a great deal to atone for,” he said, carving the fowl. He filled my plate with succulent slices, glistening in pan drippings and studded with roasted juniper berries.

“Come. Eat.”

“You do not expect me to ever forgive you, do you?” I said, accepting the plate from him. “Because I cannot.”

He paused, his hands still on my plate as if we were playing tug-of-war.

“No,” he said, releasing it. “I suppose you cannot. Yet. But perhaps someday.”

I thought of Giorgio and my padrino, distraught over my disappearance. My uncle dying without me at his side. Most of all, I thought of never seeing Orione again.

“Never,” I said. I stabbed at the meat with my knife and began to devour my food in silence.

Di Torreforte did not attempt to engage me in conversation. He refilled my wineglass, but he did not press me to speak. But I saw a dark shadow pass over his face.

“I am sorry we did not have an opportunity for you to pay your respects to Riccardo De’ Luca’s family before we left Ferrara,” he said finally.

My respects?

In my mind, I heard again—from a dark night that seemed so long ago—muffled cries. “Riccardo! Riccardo!
Dio mio!”

I swallowed, clutching my knife, a chunk of meat still speared on the tip.

“He died in a fall, broke his neck. A failed attempt to rescue you.” Di Torreforte took a sip of wine. He watched me over the rim of the glass. “Or so went the rumor amongst the d’Este family.”

I thought of Riccardo’s deep kiss, despite his suffering. I remembered how he had pressed me close against him, wincing. His breath intoxicated me.

“He was very brave,” I said finally.

“Really? His wife did not think so,” he said, dabbing his lips with a napkin.

I stopped breathing.

“I—had not realized he was married,” I stammered.

“Indeed,” said Giacomo, watching me with a ferocity I remembered from the day he kidnapped me. “Did he not tell you that?”

He took another sip of wine. He seemed to be wrestling with his dark emotions.

“Lucia d’Este thinks her husband was a fool to have risked so much. Better to have left these matters in the hands of her uncle, Duca Alfonso. Had Riccardo been caught, he would have been banished from Ferrara as a matter of course.
Persona non grata
in two dukedoms—”

“Two dukedoms?”

Di Torreforte looked down into the red depths of his wine glass, brooding.

“He was in Ferrara because he had been banished from Siena,” he said at last.

I could feel the thud of each pulse of blood reach my head.

“Riccardo De’ Luca was always a reckless fool.” I heard the bitter disdain in his voice. “Did you know him well? Or was his botched attempt simply to honor Siena?”

I gathered my skirts, preparing to rise from the table.

“Forgive me, Signor di Torreforte. I think it is best if I return to my room to rest. The long ride has tired me.”

Di Torreforte poured himself more wine. “Everyone in Siena knew the fool loved you, but a married man risking—”

“Shut up!” I shouted, pounding my fist on the table. My wine spilled, staining the white linen. “Why—why did you hate Riccardo so?”

Di Torreforte’s face contorted, muscles twitching under his skin. I suppose the long day, the risks he had taken, the conflicts he suffered, provoked him to confess what he said next.

“I hated him, just as I hated all the other Senese, for detesting my Florentine blood. But then! Then he accused me of sneaking into the Drago stall to cut that mare’s fetlocks—I would never have done such a thing! I would sooner murder my own mother than harm a horse.”

I thought of the gentle care di Torreforte had given his horses—the insistence of a rubdown and rest, despite his haste to reach Ferrara.

“Then who?” I said. “Who cut Caramella’s fetlocks?”

His voice was harsh. “The Granduca Francesco was behind it. I am certain of it. Just as he was behind the boards thrown into Via del Capitano.”

Giacomo di Torreforte stood, quickly striding to my side to ease out the chair.

“Virginia. You have had a most exhausting day,” he said, casting his eyes down at the floor. “Forgive me. I have much to atone for. My temper and rancor are just two of my sins.”

I looked at his face.

Did he have any idea how many dreams had been crushed in the past few hours?

I thought I was returning to my old life, my memories.

But that life was no more than the smoking ashes in the hearth.