The Shepherdess of Siena: A Novel of Renaissance Tuscany (16 page)

C
HAPTER
39

Florence, Palazzo Vecchio

J
ULY
12, 1576

The first light of dawn brought out the street sweepers, their red reed brushes scraping rhythmically at the wet cobblestones of the Piazza della Signoria.

The half dozen men raised their eyes at the clatter of Isabella’s coach, approaching the Palazzo Vecchio at a full gallop.

“Mala fortuna,”
said a grizzled old man, resting on his broomstick.

The other men grunted, shaking their heads in the pale light.

“Francesco, I think Pietro has plotted to murder our cousin!”

Francesco sipped his morning tea as his sister stood before him, white-faced.

He set down his cup with a clatter, his fingertips flying to his burnt lip.

“This is too damned hot,” he snapped to the servant.

“Francesco!” said Isabella, grabbing his shoulder and shaking it. “You must send the guards at once! Leonora’s servant informed me an hour ago. It may be too late already!”

“My sister, you must calm yourself,” he said, removing her hand from his shoulder.

“I will not!”

“I am sure the maidservant is suffering delusions. I found her Spanish prejudice against our family to be insulting—I am glad she was finally dismissed.”

“Your Highness,” said Serguidi. “I am sorry to interrupt. But I have a letter.”

“It must be an important letter for you to interrupt a conversation between us!” said Isabella.

Serguidi bowed.

“I fear it is
. . .
most important.”

Francesco broke the seal and unfolded the letter. His eyes raced across the words. He called, “Servant. Bring grappa for the duchessa at once.”

Then he passed the letter to his sister.

Isabella reached for the letter, seeking her brother’s eyes. He drew a long breath and refused to look at her.

With trembling hands, she held the letter.

“
Last night, at seven o’clock, an accidental death came to my wife. I beg you to write and instruct me what I should do, if I should come home or not
.”

Isabella crumpled into herself, her body shrinking in her chair.

“Your grappa, my lady,” said the manservant. He looked nervously from the granduca to the duchessa.

“Drink it, Isabella,” said Francesco without emotion, not moving from his chair. “You need it. You must compose yourself, sister. Do not forget you are a de’ Medici.”

C
HAPTER
40

Florence, Palazzo
d’
Este

J
ULY
1576

The Duca di Ferrara set down his goblet of wine, his ringed fingers unfolding the encrypted letter from his ambassador at the Florentine court.

“Scribe!” he called. “Interpret this letter.”

The scribe rushed to his desk to find the tablet with the key to Cortile’s code.

“Read it at once!” snapped the duca.

The scribe fixed his spectacle on his nose, bending over the soft vellum.

“It seems Lady Eleonora di Toledo de’ Medici has been murdered, duca mio,” said the scribe.

“What?” gasped the duke. “Leonora? Murdered?”

“Yes, it seems so. I—”

“Read the details!”

“She was strangled with a dog leash by Don Pietro.”

The scribe looked up from the cryptogram, his eyes blinking behind the glass lenses.

“Go on!” shouted the Duca di Ferrara.

“And died after a great deal of struggle. Don Pietro bears the sign, having two fingers injured from the bite of the lady.”

The scribe paused to study the encrypted message, then read on.

“He might have come off worse were it not that he called for help from two villains from Romagna, who, it is said, had been brought to the villa for that purpose.”

“That
purpose
? The swine could not murder his young wife without the help of two brutes? From our provinces?”

The scribe, befuddled and frightened, said nothing. He bent his head once more over the letter, his index finger searching on the key for the appropriate letters.

“The poor lady, it is understood, put up the greatest defense, as was seen from the state of the bed, found all tumbled, and from the voices heard throughout the house.”

“Good God!” said the duca, running a finger through his hair. “Are there swine anywhere more vile than the de’ Medici?”

C
HAPTER
41

Siena, Pugna Hills

J
ULY
1576

Despite my tutelage in riding, Padrino would not teach me to jump.

“No Palio rider needs to jump a horse except to mount him!” he scoffed. “Put that idea out of your head.”

But the image of Isabella de’ Medici soaring over the fallen olive tree danced in my memory, in my dreams.

My padrino insisted we work on the basics of riding.

If I was not to be taught to jump a horse by Brunelli, I would teach myself. But first, there was a colt that needed to be broken. Then we would jump.

I slipped out of the stables with an old bridle that was never used, the iron rusty, the leather reins chewed by rats. In the cold lambing shed on winter nights, I filed away the rust until the bit was smooth and the iron shining once more. Then I hid the bridle in the hay pile.

Orione galloped to the stone wall, snorting. The muscles under his neck bunched and curled like a snake, waiting to spring. He had grown to be a solid three-year-old, big-boned like his father, with a glossy black coat.

His star gleamed bright in the full moonlight, dancing around erratically as he shook his head at my approach.

“Good boy,” I said. “You and I are going to learn to jump together.”

I did not realize how foolish I was. I was too blinded by my love for Orione to see the danger. And I had forgotten what my padrino had told me about the danger of a full moon.

“We will do what the de’ Medici princess did, but we will do it even better, because we are both Senese, you and I,” I said, rubbing his star. “Senese always do things better than Florentines.”

Orione threw his head, pushing away my hand.

I tried again.

“Now. First you must hold very still. I will put something in your mouth. Yes, caro, it will feel hard against your mouth. But you must not worry.”

Orione looked at me dubiously.

“Here,” I said, hovering the bridle above his head. “We will just slip my thumb in here, and you will take the bit like this—”

The cool iron of the bit touched his teeth and tongue. I sensed raw anger in the air, like an electrical storm. He reared up next to me, the whites of his eyes shining in the dark.

“Orione! It’s me,
la tua
Virginia!”

His hooves sliced the night as I covered my face. He came down hard against me, banging my shoulder and knocking me to the ground. A copper taste filled my mouth. I realized I had bitten my tongue.

The whites of his eyes shone in the moonlight. He backed up a few steps, snorting.

Bits of spittle flecked my bodice.

“No, you brute,” I said, slapping the spit off my clothes. “We are going to prove them wrong. You will be ridden. You will not become another Tempesta, locked away for life.”

As I approached him, he reared again, high off the ground. He shook his head, menacing me. I caught my breath, chasing away the memory of Tempesta nearly killing me. “No, caro
.
We must do this.”

I took a step closer. “Here,” I said, hovering the bridle above his head. “Slowly, now—”

He reared up next to me, spinning on his hind legs. He knocked me to the ground once more.

“Figlio di puttana!” I screamed. “Bastardo!”

Scrambling to my feet, I shook my fist in his face.

“If you cannot be ridden, they will wall you up someplace or even shoot you. You must—”

Orione took a step toward me and bit my arm. His teeth clamped hard and fast, striking like a viper.

“Ow!” I screamed. “Ow! Stronzo!
Testa di cazzo
!
”

I swung my leg up from under my skirt and kicked him as hard as I could in the belly. He grunted in pain, galloping away.

I crouched over, holding my arm. I pulled up my sleeve and saw the teethmarks where Orione had miraculously not broken the skin, but pinched deep into my muscle.

“I hate you!” I screamed, my cry echoing across the hills. “Do you hear me? I am sorry I ever saved your life, you wretched horse!”

I crawled over the stone wall, clutching my arm.

In the nights that followed, I tried other ways of persuading Orione to take the bridle. I rubbed the bit in crushed apple to sweeten the taste. I hummed “Per Forza e Amore” to him, the song I had sung the night he was born.

He would mouth the bit, curious at the taste of apple. But time and time again, he threw his head, refusing to let me bridle him. He had grown strong and broad across his chest and muscled in the neck, and he looked more like the stallion he was.

Still, he followed me whenever I was near the pasture. He paralleled the stone wall as I moved with the sheep, racing back and forth, shaking his head. He wanted to be near me. But he would not let me place a bit in his mouth.

My cousin Franco caught my sleeve one afternoon as I was working with the dog, dividing my ewes from the herd.

“That colt needs cutting,” he said, gesturing down the hill to the pasture.

I pushed away the memory of Orione’s slamming against my shoulder when I tried to bridle him.

“As if you knew anything about horses,” I retorted over the backs of my sheep. “Tend to your flock and stay out of my business.”

I turned away from my cousin. I leveled my staff over the sheep I wanted cut from the herd, drawing an invisible line among them. The dog picked them out one by one.

“I know about uncastrated males,” said Franco, spitting thickly on the grass. “You can see the danger in that one. No matter whether you saved his life or not. That stallion has Tempesta in him. If they don’t cut him, his
coglioni
will rule him. His father killed two men. He looks just like his father did at his age. They should castrate him now before he kills you.”

“Shut up, Franco. Come on, Dog!” I shouted.

I developed a plan. If Orione could not abide the taste of iron in his mouth, I would not fight him.

The collo di cavallo now hung in the Brunelli stables in a place of prominence, near the entry. I had insisted it belonged to my padrino as much as me. Also, I did not trust Zia Claudia with such a treasure.

While rubbing down a horse I had just ridden, I took the collo from its hook, folding it in the shepherd’s bag I wore slung across my chest when I wandered the hills.

“What are you doing with that?” asked Giorgio.

I whirled around, gasping, my hand to my heart.

“You always appear from nowhere! Why are you always spying on me?”

“I asked a simple question. The collo.”

“I need it. La duchessa gave it to me. I can do what I want with it.”

“I never questioned that. What are you going to do with it?”

“Never you mind,” I said, turning away to rub my horse’s steaming back. “Go back to your painting and leave me alone.”

Now, with the collo di cavallo, I was ready to try again. But the night before I planned to ride, when the moon was only a sliver, I heard galloping hooves.

I rose from the straw and lit the lantern. I ran out, trying desperately to see in the darkness. I heard a whinny, high-pitched and raw.

In the night, I saw his star beyond the stone wall. He galloped toward me, smelling my scent as the wind changed direction.

“No, Orione.
No
!
”

The paddock meant to contain him had been built more than two
braccia
high, the height of my shoulder. He would break a leg.

I heard more than I saw. The drum of his hooves churning up the turf, nearing the wall. And the silence.

The silence as Orione lifted off the ground, soaring over the stone barrier.

A two-beat thud and the hoofbeats resuming.

His star danced in the dim light as he approached me. He trotted the last few paces, dropping his head. He stood before me in the pool of light cast by the lantern.

I buried my head in his mane, breathing in the warm, salty horse scent.

“You jumped,” I said. “You! You did it without me. What kind of friend are you,
ingrato
?”

Orione snorted and his lips stretched out, gently searching my apron for apples.

“Wait here,” I said.

But of course, he didn’t. He followed me right into the lambing sheds where he had been born.

Under the straw, I had buried some apples in a wooden box so the mice would not find them. I opened the lid and felt Orione’s head on my shoulder, looking on. I chose the biggest and fed him, the weight of his head comforting me.

He took the apple tenderly.

We stood together for a moment. I looked at the corner of the lambing sheds, remembering the day he was born.

“What do you think, Orione?”

He chewed on the apple, regarding me in the lantern light.

“Tonight, I will ride you. But not with the bit. You have won that battle.”

I gently pushed his head away and walked to the cot where I had stored the collo.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” I said to him. “This was your mother’s. The day she won the Palio.”

Orione looked wary. But as I fingered the ribbons, feeling their silky touch, he grew more interested.

He approached me. His lips stretched out to nibble the ribbons.

“Not to eat,” I warned him, pulling away. “It is the souvenir of your mother’s victory.”

I stroked his neck, feeling the warm life under my fingers. I looked back at the straw-strewn corner where he was born.

“I wonder if you can remember,” I said, reaching both arms around his neck. “How far back can horses recall?”

The stars twinkled beyond the open shed. My eyes searched for the constellation, his namesake.

High above us, it sparkled bright.

I must be
pazza
, crazy, to ride an unbroken colt on a dark winter night. I could end up lying on the frozen ground with broken bones.

Rompicollo.

A broken neck. My cousins would not find me until morning.

“Easy, now,” I said. I showed Orione the collo. I rubbed it against his neck, his lips, his muzzle. He sniffed, pulling in its scent. He curled his lip up, showing his teeth in the comical way horses do.

“Do not insult the collo, Orione,” I said. “It represents great honor.”

He backed up, his nostrils flaring.