The Shepherdess of Siena: A Novel of Renaissance Tuscany (10 page)

C
HAPTER
22

Siena, Pugna Hills

M
AY
1574

When the moon waned to a sliver in the night sky each month, Giorgio insisted it was too dangerous to ride under the dim starlight. And each month, I grew restless as we waited until the moon fattened once more.

After a year of lessons, the gnawing hunger to ride had not diminished. The more I rode, the keener the urge.

Even when I wasn’t riding, I was practicing, imagining the world around me filled with horses. The bean pods I shelled became reins in my hand; my stride walking the grassy hills became the movement of a horse. I caressed the sheep as if they were Orione, Stella, and Adela. I wound my fingers tight around their wool. The skin of my rough hands grew soft and supple from their oil; the dirt and straw clung to my skin.

My posture improved so markedly, Zia Claudia noticed my height.

“The girl is growing quickly,” she said to Zio Giovanni. “We should talk to the tanner soon and begin marriage bartering.”

“I will not marry the tanner’s son!” I snapped. “And you cannot make me.”

Zia Claudia strode toward me, her hand poised in midair to slap my face. Zio Giovanni caught her by the wrist.

“Leave the child in peace!”

“You!” she said, looking at me over her husband’s shoulder. She struggled against him, swinging her weight to break his hold. “You are a penniless orphan! You should thank the Virgin for anyone who would have you.”

“Tranquilla,” said Zio, holding her arm.

“Let go of me!” spat Zia.

“Leave the girl in peace.”

Claudia glared at her husband, challenging him.

“If you want her to marry, do not bruise her face,” he said. “She is of great value, Claudia. Can you not see that? Do not damage her assets.”

Zio stepped back, gazing at me. His face took on an expression he wore when appraising a lamb or ewe to add to our flock.

“She has her mother’s looks,” said Zio. “Have you noticed how her face has hollowed with those same high cheekbones, how her eyes flash? A Senese beauty.”

My hands touched my face. We had no mirrors in the house—these were costly luxuries—so how was I to know I was changing?

Zia Claudia snorted. “I doubt she can do better than the tanner. His wares fetch a pretty florin.”

“We will see,” mused Zio. “But she has caught the eye of several villagers as we walk through the lane. And I cannot say I relish the smell of dog dung and piss on a member of my family.”

“It is the smell of money, you fool!” said Claudia.

But she looked at me differently now, as if she had not considered that I might have some value until that moment.

“She will need some fattening,” said Zia, her eyes taking in my bony arms and flat bosom. “Then we will take her to market.”

I could not wait for the late afternoon, when I would leave for the sheepfold. My cheeks burned with shame as I felt the appraising look from Zia. I ran to the hills, desperate to find Orione. I gathered the old ewes into the pen and whistled for the colt.

He nickered, racing to me from his mother’s side. I sat in the grass, and within seconds he buckled his long legs, settling next to me.

I kneaded my fingers into his baby mane, drawing in the warm scent of colt. The sun set, coloring the Tuscan hillside molten gold. Together we watched the evening star appear.

“I will never marry the tanner’s son!” I whispered, stroking his neck. I pressed my lips against his black coat.

“I love you alone, Orione.”

His brown eyes focused on me in the twilight. I traced the white constellation of stars that formed his blaze, sealing my vow.

Old Brunelli’s hands reached over a bay mare’s withers, his lips murmuring a curse. His fingers traced the edges of a flesh wound.

The mare jumped back, pulling out of his grasp.

“Hold this mare.” My padrino handed me the lead rope.

He limped over to his worktable, where bottles and bowls of potions lined the shelves, trusty soldiers ready for battle.

Brunelli returned with a bowl of white powder.

“What is it?” I wanted—no, I needed—to know everything about horses. How to cure them as well as how to ride them.

“Sugar,” he said. “The finest, from a noble’s kitchen pantry. Payment for shoeing a lame horse. One of a matched pair they could not do without.” He chuckled.

His hands traced the backbone of the mare, sending a quiver up her spine. He stopped at the festering wound.

“A whore-born fool rode this good mare. Look how the saddle pinched her!”

The sore gaped open, oozing yellow pus.

He wiped the wound with wool dampened in sour red wine. The mare jumped away at first, but between the two of us, we calmed her down.

“Easy now, tranquilla,” I murmured, stroking her neck.

My padrino caught my eye and smiled as the mare responded to my calming voice and touch.

He sprinkled sugar into the wound. The mare’s skin twitched, trying to shake off the precious grains like flies. With his fingertips, Brunelli pressed the sweetness into the open flesh.

He stood back, wiping his hands on a rag mottled with stains.

“A week from now, that wound will close.”

I kissed the mare’s velvet nose.

“See there. You will be all better,” I told her.

My padrino studied me.

“You seem so much more confident around horses now, ciccia,” he said. “How you handle them, anticipate their approval.”

I ducked my head. I loved when he called me by that nickname, although I was as skinny as a stick.

He smiled at me, almost as if he knew about my moonlight rides.

C
HAPTER
23

Siena, Palazzo
d’
Elci

J
UNE
1574

After the Beccafumi incident, Maestro Lungo was careful never to choose an equestrian scene again for his students.

He could not forgive himself for asking Giorgio Brunelli to destroy his brilliant painting, and for criticizing his work in front of the other students—especially di Torreforte.

But a study was a study—those were the strict rules of the academy. The objective was to copy and learn from the great masters, not to alter their work.

Any attempt to improve on the masters was considered an insult, hubris. And hadn’t he warned Brunelli of the consequences? But the truth was, the maestro was haunted by his decision.

Maestro Lungo not only taught art at the academy but also procured paintings for some of the richest and most discerning men. His art dealings could easily sustain a comfortable lifestyle, but he refused to leave the studio. He dedicated the last years of his life to teaching other artists, hoping to find among them a Senese Da Vinci. That discovery would be his legacy.

The old maestro’s choice for the newest study had been a closely guarded secret. Now a black carriage, discreetly displaying the emblem of the House of Ferrara, drew up to the doors of Palazzo d’Elci. Met by the duca’s doormen, a cadre of guards whisked a carefully wrapped painting upstairs into the marble hall.

Di Torreforte’s complaints about the paintings their teacher had selected for them to copy had etched deep in the heart of the maestro.

“All Senese, old and musty, devoid of talent! I smell their old men’s breath, sour and aged. Bones in their graves before Florence came with all her glory, dragging the stagnant backwater of Siena forward toward a glimpse of renaissance. Why cannot Lungo recognize this fact and give us art of our times?”

“Too old and decrepit himself, I suppose,” mocked another Florentine.

Though the maestro’s eyes were veiled in cataracts, his hearing remained sharp as a hound’s. He clenched his arthritic fingers. He would prove the arrogant Florentines wrong.

Antonio Lungo worked hard to procure a canvas so shocking—so sweeping in lust and carnality, passion and skill—that it would leave his students gasping.

Especially di Torreforte.

The June sun, already cresting the Torre del Mangia, spun glittering pools of light on the white marble. The maestro instructed his attendants to set up the easel and masterpiece in the far interior corner of the room.

“The canvas you have the honor of copying is of tempera paints, its nuances subtle,” said the maestro. “It is best studied in low light.”

“Tempera! Another Senese dark master,” groaned di Torreforte. “I cannot bear any more—”

“On the contrary, Signor di Torreforte—this is by one of your fellow Florentines and quite contemporary. I think his reputation precedes him. The Duca Alfonso d’Este helped me to procure it from the house of Ferrara for a few months.”

“The Duca di Ferrara—a foul adversary of Florence!” said di Torreforte.

“Hmm,” mused the maestro. “In this particular case, I think you Florentines will forgive me.”

The maestro drew back the satin cover. Several students gasped.

Di Torreforte stared, dumbfounded.

“Michelangelo,” he whispered.

Giorgio stared, unable to blink. His lips curved in delight, his hands itching for his brushes and paints.

The studio buzzed with a thrilled murmur.

The most controversial work in Michelangelo’s oeuvre stood before the students. It was rumored that the Duca di Ferrara had already sent it to a castle in France to avoid the fury of the Pope, who had demanded that this obscenity of a painting be destroyed.

Not yet.

The students crowded around the canvas, silent.

A tempera painting of a sleeping Leda, the swan between her legs, climbing to her breasts, his black beak posed just above her parted lips. Her naked body reclined against a crimson cushion in an elaborate curve, her bare thigh thrown around the swan.

Leda’s fingers flickered, dreamily aware of sexual pleasure. Ecstasy.

“Enough passion for you, Signor di Torreforte?” asked the maestro.

Di Torreforte turned toward him, stunned. “How did you—”

“A little tactful respect and complete dedication to art brings good fortune, Signor di Torreforte. You should investigate that posture. It may profit you in the future. Students—to your posts. Begin your ink sketches at once.”

The old teacher smiled over the bowed heads of his students. His dim eyes sought the light of Il Campo, just beyond the leaded windows.

C
HAPTER
24

Florence, Palazzo Vecchio

J
UNE
1574

Francesco de’ Medici’s personal secretary, Antonio Serguidi, finished his morning wine as the early light slanted through the windows of Palazzo Vecchio. He brushed the crumbs of breakfast bread from his tunic as his attendant entered.

“Buongiorno, Signor Serguidi.”

“Buongiorno, Alessandro. What have you brought me?”

“A letter for the granduca, signore.”

Serguidi turned the letter over in his hand, the red wax seal bright against the ivory parchment.

He examined the seal—a five-petal rose.

“Orsini,” he muttered.

“A rider from Rome arrived a quarter of an hour ago,” said the servant. “If the duca wishes to reply, he will carry the letter himself.”

Serguidi raised his eyebrows.

“A bit of a rush, do you not think, Alessandro? That I should be inconvenienced at such an early hour of the morning to do Orsini’s bidding.”

Alessandro produced a leather pouch jingling with florins.

“The rider said Paolo Orsini sends this token of his appreciation and hopes to hasten the reply.”

Antonio Serguidi plucked the bag from the manservant’s hand. He smiled, pocketing the bag without inspecting its contents.

“
Bene
. I shall deliver it immediately to the granduca. Please see that the messenger is comfortably lodged until it is decided whether a response is warranted.”

The servant nodded and left.

Serguidi wiped his fingertips on a linen napkin, inspecting them carefully before touching the missive. He frowned, knowing the granduca would be working in his studiolo that morning.

The studiolo was a barrel-vaulted room that combined a laboratory for Francesco’s alchemy experiments, a library, and space for contemplation. Its walls were jammed with paintings by Italy’s most prestigious artists, although mostly not their best work. The gilded frames were crowded together, creating—for Serguidi, at least—a nightmarish kaleidoscope of colors and mythical figures.

Even the cabinets for storing the elements used in alchemical experiments were obscured by oval paintings with keyholes drilled through the canvases.

The space was windowless. The only entrance was through the granduca’s bedroom. The four walls represented the four elements: air, fire, earth, and water. Chemicals, artifacts, and oddities were arranged in cabinets according to their nearest corresponding element. Pieces of coral, pearls, mandrake root, witches’ potions, and poisons were shelved following Francesco’s interpretation.

To Serguidi, entering the studiolo was akin to walking into an ornate sarcophagus. And as the granduca spent more and more time entombed there—away from the responsibility of running the business of Florence—his secretary wondered if it would not indeed be de’ Medici’s tomb.

He knocked on the door, sucking in his breath. Francesco de’ Medici would be perturbed at any disruption that did not involve his mistress, Bianca Cappello.

As Serguidi entered, Granduca Francesco was bent over a small beaker. A tube ran into it from a larger glass vessel, over a small flame.

“Yes. Yes! Serguidi!” The granduca pulled a linen kerchief down from around his nose and mouth. “I assume you have a magnificent reason for disturbing me.”

“Sì, Serenissimo—”

“First, come and see the distillation I am performing.”

Serguidi coughed, the fumes from the granduca’s apparatus irritating his throat. He often worried that the fumes were poisonous. “Yes, Your Majesty. With pleasure.”

“Quicksilver,” pronounced the duca with satisfaction. “The manuscripts suggest that under just the right conditions, heat and mercury can produce gold.”

“A recipe from Prague, I assume,” said Serguidi, trying hard to disguise his contempt for Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II’s stable of alchemical swindlers.

“Yes!” said Francesco, a smile spreading over his face. “Decoded from an ancient manuscript. Egyptian, Arabic. I cannot remember the source.”

Serguidi gave a curt nod.

“And what do you bring me? A letter from my beloved?”

“I am distressed to reply in the negative,” said Serguidi. “It is a letter just delivered from Signor Orsini, Duca di Bracciano, in Rome.”

Francesco took the letter, moving away from the alchemical apparatus. He read the letter, blinking away tears from the experiment’s fumes.

“Hmmmm,” he muttered. “The miserable swine.”

“Bad
notizie
, Your Majesty?”

“He begs to borrow more money to finance his naval operation. Such a huge sow of a man, how can a ship not sink into the sea with him onboard?”

“The Duca of Bracciano does seem overly fond of what he finds on his plate,” agreed Serguidi.

Of all the de’ Medici family, Paolo Orsini was the most repugnant. Corpulent and greedy, the husband of the elegant Isabella was a disgrace to the family name—both Orsini and Medici.

Orsini regularly pleaded for money to finance his estate in Bracciano—the family manor Isabella had visited only once—and his magnificent palazzo in Rome. The old Granduca Cosimo had often lent his son-in-law money to keep him happy and isolated in Rome. Now Paolo Orsini was attempting to ingratiate himself with Felipe II of Spain by creating his own naval fleet.

“The Duca di Bracciano has decided rather late in life to become a naval commander,” observed Serguidi.

“Still, it rids me of his miserable presence at Court,” said Francesco. “And Felipe will see it as augmenting his navy with our support. Yes, yes, grant him the money with choice land in Bracciano as collateral, as in the past.”

“Very good, Your Majesty. I will draw up the contracts.”

Francesco held up a finger, hesitating.

“The only issue that concerns me is how my sister Isabella will comport herself when her husband is not in Rome but far off at sea, fighting the Ottomans. I do not trust Paolo’s cousin Troilo. Or my sister.”

The granduca covered his scowl with the linen kerchief, turning back to his experiment.

Serguidi lingered. He cleared his throat.

“With your permission, Granduca,” said Serguidi. “Your instincts are correct, as always. My sources indicate that Troilo Orsini is very much taken with your sister. And she with him.”

Francesco looked up from the beaker. He straightened his back, yanking off his kerchief.

“I can confirm that Troilo has arranged trysts with the Duchessa di Bracciano, Your Majesty,” said the secretary, his eyes lowered.

The granduca gnawed at the hairs of his mustache, his eyes ardent with hate.

“A bitch in heat!”

Serguidi bowed his head, his eyes studying the polished tiles of the studiolo.

“What can I do? My sister takes lovers as if she were a man, with no discretion. She soils the de’ Medici name.”

Serguidi nodded. He chased away the fleeting image of Francesco’s mistress.

“Perhaps to avoid a jealous confrontation, Duca Paolo is best occupied at sea,” suggested the secretary. “Then you can reason with the duchessa.”

“Reason!” said Francesco. “As if my sister would ever respond to reason!”

“If Your Majesty were to find an opportunity to talk privately with the Duchessa di Bracciano, perhaps you could—strongly convey—the danger of her—alliances.”

Francesco raised his finger to his upper lip, stroking his mustache.

“Yes! As usual your counsel is invaluable, Antonio. Write the contract and send Paolo Orsini packing.”

Serguidi hurried out the door of the studiolo, drawing a deep breath as he entered the hallway of the Palazzo Vecchio.