The Miracles of Prato (26 page)

The painter gestured wildly to a dark corner of the chapel, where he'd stored the Medici triptych.

“I want to leave here, Piero, and take Lucrezia with me. As soon as the child is born, as soon as the frescoes are finished, as soon as I've been paid, I want to leave this city.”

He spoke with such speed, the procurator was alarmed. He laid a hand on his friend's shoulder. A wasted look haunted his face.

“Are you eating, Filippo?”

“Eating? My God, Piero, look at the feast of King Herod, here on the wall.” He pulled his arm, and Fra Piero followed him to the right of the scaffolding. “Look at this banquet scene.”

The procurator took in the details of the frescoed banquet table, the chessboard of green and red floor tiles painted across the bottom of the wall, the strained faces of the banquet guests, the gray head of martyred Saint John. He followed as the painter moved several feet to the left and held the lantern above a hazy white space on the red and green tiles.

“My Salome,” Fra Filippo said, his voice thickening as his words slowed. “This will be my Salome.”

Fra Piero climbed up the scaffold and looked carefully at the face that was sketched faintly on the wall. The woman looked like Lucrezia, ripe in the fullness of her pregnancy. But there was something in the dancer's faint expression that he'd never seen on Lucrezia.

“Salome performs a harlot's dance,” Fra Filippo said, coming so close that Fra Piero could smell the many unwashed days and nights on his soiled clothing. “She dances so that King Herod will give her whatever she wants, and then—”

Fra Filippo stopped.

“And then?” Fra Piero waited. The lamplight flickered on his friend's face, making strange shadows.

“And then with a single dance, a single request from her lips, Saint John is martyred. His head is delivered on a platter.”

Fra Filippo fell silent. He'd been here for days, it seemed, thinking about Salome. At last he understood—her dancing figure would anchor the entire fresco cycle. He would paint her in layers of white, in ghostly motion, only slightly more present than a mirage. Salome's body would flow with snakelike grace apart from everything else, swaying to an inner rhythm.

Forgetting his friend, the painter took a red crayon from his pocket and sketched Salome's figure in the form of a perfect arabesque against the fixed lines of the tiled floor. Men and women would condemn Salome as a heartless harlot, but they would look at her with longing and envy, and understand the bewitching spell she cast over her audience.

“Filippo?”

The painter turned at the sound of his friend's voice, and blinked. How long had the procurator been standing there with him? He looked at his work and waved his hand across the scene, his eyes wild as he gestured to the spot where Salome's pointed foot would barely skim the surface of the floor in the banquet hall.

“You see, Piero, Salome is beautiful but she's capricious. She has a ghostly power no man can hold on to,” he said. “Anyone who looks at her will understand that Saint John's strength, his very life, was destroyed by a woman who seemed no more substantial than the fleeting smell of her perfume, a woman with only one delicate foot tethering her to this Earth.”

The procurator put his hand on the painter's shoulder again.

“Filippo, don't worry. I'll watch out for Lucrezia.”

“Of course.” Fra Filippo nodded furiously at the mention of her name. “But truly, Piero, she's in God's hands now. We're both in God's hands.”

Tuesday of the Twelfth Week After Pentecost, the Year of Our Lord 1457

There was no mistaking the pains this time. Water rushed between Lucrezia's legs, her belly hardened, her bowels emptied, and spasms ripped through her. It was just past Nones on the twenty-seventh day of August, a day so hot she could barely breathe.

“Help me, Mother Mary,” she cried. “Help me.”

The novitiate was the first at her bedside.

“Rosina.” She grabbed the girl's small hand. “Rosina, please get Sister Pureza.”

Sister Pureza came in silently, rinsing the garden dirt off her palms and depositing a fresh bunch of parsley into a cup of cool water. She dried her hands on a clean rag and told Rosina to fill the wooden tub with warm water from the kitchen cauldron. The old woman folded back Lucrezia's gown and reached between her bent legs. The mouth of her womb was beginning to open.

“Stand up, Sister Lucrezia.” The old woman took her by the elbow and lifted her to a seated position. “The child is coming, you have to help it along.”

Lucrezia's eyes were dark blue, the whites shot with broken blood vessels.

“I don't know if I can.” She hooked an arm around Sister Pureza's shoulders and let her feet fall to the floor.

“Rosina, hold her other side,” Sister Pureza said when the girl returned with the warm water and poured it into the tub. “Now walk,” she ordered Lucrezia. “Walk.”

Lucrezia dragged herself back and forth across the infirmary until the sun passed over the west wall of the convent and Sister Pureza let her collapse onto the pallet at last. Rosina came to her with a cup of fennel stew. Her mouth was dry from wailing, her body weak.

“I can't do it,” she said, panting. “I'm sorry,” she said to Sister Pureza's back. “I can't do it.”

“Don't waste your strength,” the old nun said. “Eat.”

Lucrezia labored into the night, far longer than she thought she could endure. Spinetta hovered outside the infirmary door and twice Lucrezia called to her, but her sister didn't answer.

“Please, bring Spinetta to me,” Lucrezia begged. In the month since she'd been at the convent, Spinetta had been to see her only twice, and she'd refused to speak or even to meet her eye. “I want to see her.”

“Rosina is the only help we need,” Sister Pureza said, her jaw tight.

The old nun warmed a dab of lemon oil and lard between her hands, rubbing her palms swiftly. Then she reached between Lucrezia's legs and smoothed the balm onto the tender pink skin that was stretched nearly to the point of ripping.

“My God,” Lucrezia screamed. Her breath came in rapid gasps and she bore down, shrieking.

“Now's the time,” Sister Pureza said. “The child's coming now.”

Rosina held Lucrezia's legs in the air and a dark head crowned the torn skin.

“Bear down,” Sister Pureza instructed. “Bear down.”

Lucrezia screamed, her cries filling the night and reaching the ears of the nuns who cringed in their cells. With a final heave, Lu
crezia's body let go of the child and it slid into a blanket in Sister Pureza's waiting arms.

Sister Pureza took the knife in her hand and sliced the thick chord that bound the child to the mother.

“Is it a boy?” Lucrezia had barely enough energy to ask that simple question. When she heard only silence, she began to wail. “What's wrong? Is something wrong with my baby?”

Sister Pureza looked between the child's legs to the small purple scrotum, the plug of his penis. She turned him over, held him by the feet, and swatted him on the back, then on the bottom, twice. He coughed thick mucus from his lungs, and his wail filled the chamber.

“Thank God.” Lucrezia began to weep. “Thank you, God.”

“It's a boy,” the midwife said quietly. She rinsed him in the tub, wiping his face and body, and running her finger across the strange mark on the boy's left buttock. She used the corner of the blanket to rub him clean, taking an extra minute at the deep red cross. But the birthmark didn't smudge. Sister Pureza glanced across the room at Rosina, and saw the girl's dark eyes taking everything in.

“Let me hold him,” Lucrezia said, stretching out her hands weakly. But the old woman ignored Lucrezia's cries as she swaddled the child tightly in a blanket worn soft and gray from years of washing. She put the child into Rosina's arms, and pushed down on Lucrezia's swollen belly until the afterbirth slid from her. The young woman had lost a lot of blood. Her limbs were shaking dangerously, and her arms were cold to the touch. Sister Pureza pressed a poultice between her legs, and covered Lucrezia with a heavy woolen blanket.

“Let me hold him.” Lucrezia reached a pale hand toward the novitiate. “
Per piacere,
give him to me.”

Sister Pureza watched for the beads of perspiration that would
mean Lucrezia's body was warming, then brought her a thimble of calendula and nettle tea.

“Drink this,” she said.

Lucrezia pursed her lips and swallowed obediently.

“Bring him to me,” she begged, reaching out her arms. But Sister Pureza had already taken the child and turned away.

“Sister, where are you going?” Lucrezia watched the woman's wimple and dark robe sway through the candlelit chamber. Sister Pureza stopped near the wooden crucifix that hung on the wall, and held a sheet of parchment up to the candlelight.

“Baptize him, please, Sister,” Lucrezia said, her voice weakening.

The old nun was already doing exactly that, making the sign of the cross on the infant's forehead, dripping water from her damp fingers and murmuring the words that would cleanse his soul of original sin.

“Be sure his head is warm,” Lucrezia heard the midwife say to Rosina. “He may be traveling far.”

“Bambino mio,”
Lucrezia called out. “Where is he going? Where are you taking him?”

Neither the old woman nor the young girl turned.

“Bring him to me,” Lucrezia cried. She saw Sister Pureza opening the door and Rosina leaving with her baby.

“Spinetta, are you there?” Lucrezia called frantically. She tried to sit up but her arms were too weak, the pain too great. “Bring him back,” she wailed. “Bring him back to me.”

The door closed. The child and Rosina were gone. Only Sister Pureza remained, her face pinched and impassive.

“Where is he going, Sister Pureza? I beg you, bring him back to me.”

All these weeks, the old woman's coolness had seemed a just
punishment for her sins. But this was something Lucrezia hadn't imagined.

“I came to you in good faith, Sister Pureza, I thought you were my friend.”

The old woman didn't answer. She walked quickly around the room, rolling up soiled bedsheets, dragging the washtub of blood-tinted water into the herb garden.

Squaring her shoulders, the midwife held a match to a bundled stick of dried rosemary and sage, spreading a thick plume of smoke that burned Lucrezia's eyes. The girl's weeping grew more heart-wrenching.

“I tried to show you what comes of carnal knowledge,” Sister Pureza said through the darkness. The girl stopped wailing, and Sister Pureza could tell she was listening. “But you didn't take my warning. You didn't believe me. Now you'll know, Sister Lucrezia. Now you'll know.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I've followed the prior general's orders.”

“The prior general,” Lucrezia shrieked, and moved as if to rise. “
Dio mio,
don't let him do this to me. You know he hurt me, Sister Pureza, you know the prior general hurt me.”

“It's not in my power to go against his orders. You've conceived and carried a child in sin. Now your sin will be erased, and the child will be raised by a Christian family. Consider yourself blessed.”

Lucrezia couldn't answer through her tears.

“This is best,” the midwife offered. “We've delivered of you a healthy son, but we won't speak of him again. You'll see, this is best,” she said as she shut the door.

Lucrezia wept alone, her eyes fixed on the wooden crucifix on the wall.

“Jesus Christ and Mother Mary,” she cried into the sage-smoked darkness. “Protect my son until we're together again. I beg you to watch over my baby.”

She waited, letting the darkness envelop her. Then she whispered the baby's name so the saints and the Virgin and Jesus Christ Himself would know this babe was her own.

“Filippino. Watch over my Filippino and bring him back to me. Jesus, Mother Mary, can you hear me?”

She looked to the crucifix on the wall, and it seemed even Christ, in His suffering, had turned away.

 

The next morning Lucrezia sought sympathy in Sister Pureza's gray eyes, but the old nun refused to speak of the child. Briskly she changed the poultice and rags between Lucrezia's legs, then brought her a warm broth and urged the girl to eat.

“Please let me see the procurator,” Lucrezia asked after she'd sipped some broth and was certain there would be no mercy from Sister Pureza. “I want him to hear my confession; I need to atone for my sins.”

The old nun brought the procurator to the infirmary after Nones prayers. Lucrezia waited until they were alone, then clutched desperately at Fra Piero's hand and put her lips to his ear. She barely trusted herself to speak the few necessary words without wailing.

“Do you know they took my baby?” She could see in his eyes that he already knew.

“You let them take my baby? You knew and you let them?” Her voice was a ragged sob as she shook her head wildly from side to side. “Please, Fra Piero, don't let the prior general do this to me.”

Fra Piero took Lucrezia's small hands in his, holding them still.

“I'm sorry, I have no real power in the Order,” he said. “If I cross the prior general he'll strip me of my post and I'll be of no use to you at all.”

“No!” Lucrezia tugged her hands free and fell back against the pillow, weeping. “You were there when we took the vows, you know the child isn't born out of wedlock, Fra Piero, don't turn away from me now, I beg you.”

She took a deep breath and a new sense of fury filled her lungs. Her face contorted.

“Tell Filippo they've taken our son,” she said fiercely. “Tell him to call on his friends, now. His powerful friends.”

Seeing Sister Pureza returning, Lucrezia clasped her hands together and the procurator made the sign of the cross on her forehead with his thumb.

“You'll do it, won't you, Piero?” she whispered feverishly as she watched him go. “You'll do it.”

Sister Pureza and the procurator came face to face in the doorway. Before Fra Piero could speak, the old woman cast a hard look into the sickroom.

“You've tired her,” Sister Pureza said curtly. “She must rest, or she won't get her strength back.”

Then she closed the infirmary door, leaving Fra Piero alone in the garden.

 

Fra Piero went directly to the
cappella maggiore
in Santo Stefano. He found Fra Filippo standing in front of his dancing Salome, adding white to the wisp of her flowing gown.

“You've come with news?” The monk's robe was frayed and he needed a bath.

“Come walk with me,” Fra Piero said, looking around at the
chapel. Fra Diamante waved a greeting from the scaffold, Giorgio and Tomaso nodded, and Young Marco, whose hands were as slender as a girl's, was using a feather brush to put light clouds in the sky over the scene of Saint Stephen's martyrdom. “We must speak alone.”

The two monks hurried from the room, and at the entrance to the nave Fra Filippo stopped.

“Has something happened?” he asked anxiously. “Has something happened to Lucrezia?”

“Lucrezia's fine. I've only just come from the convent,” Fra Piero said cautiously. “The child was born at dawn. It's a boy. A fine boy.”

The monk's face broke into a broad smile, and he clapped his friend on the shoulder.

“A son.” He threw both arms around him. “I have a son. Come, Piero, let's have a glass of wine and praise the Lord.”

They walked into the sunlight, turning east into the Piazza Mercatale, where Fra Piero picked out a cask of wine from the covered booth of the Vintners' Guild. He uncorked it and passed it to his friend. Fra Filippo held the bottle toward heaven, thanked God, and took a long swallow.

“There's something else.” The procurator watched the painter lower the cask and narrow his eyes. “It's not good, Filippo.”

By the time his friend had told him everything, the painter had guzzled most of the wine, sending rivulets of crimson down the sides of his mouth and onto his robe as he worked himself into a rage.

“They can't do it, they can't do this to her,” Fra Filippo growled, kicking a stone in the road. He tipped the bottle and swallowed the last drops. “God damn Saviano.”

Fra Piero bought another jug of wine and walked Fra Filippo to the bridge over the Bisenzo River, past the silk dyers' vats and the fishermen's shacks that lined the riverbank. Fra Filippo drank the
second flask more quickly than the first, reeling between rage and despair. He stood beside the tallest cypress along the river and held on to it as if he might fall off the edge of the earth. Then he begged a third bottle of wine from Fra Piero, which he drank as they stumbled back toward the Piazza della Pieve.

“I'll kill him,” he said as he walked up the pebbled path to his
bottega
. “He's the devil, that's what he is.”

The painter's front door was unlocked, and the air inside was stale. He picked up the sketch he'd made of Lucrezia, and carried it with him as Fra Piero led him to the bare pallet in the bedroom.

“My altarpiece, I can't leave it at the chapel.” The monk's speech was slurred as he grabbed Fra Piero's robe at the collar and tried to pull himself to his feet. “I'm going back for it.”