The Smile (23 page)

People talk in angry rants. They say Savonarola is right about moral decay, right about the future of Florence, right about everything. Piero must be stopped.

No one sees Savonarola for the bully that he is. That's what Giuliano called him, and I know now that it's true.

But at the same time, Savonarola may be right about Piero. My understanding of politics is limited. But my understanding of business is not. A person who makes decisions when he has no right to, and whose decisions are costly to everyone around him—such a person will bring a business down.

But Piero isn't Giuliano. No one says a word against Giuliano.

That night I sleep restlessly.

The next two days are repeats, the only difference being that the litany of wrongs people claim Piero has committed doubles.

Wednesday night a bell bongs. I jump from bed. A second bong comes. This is not an ordinary church bell, tolling the hour. I go into the hall and meet Aunt Nanina rushing along. “The bell of the Signoria,” she says. “Get dressed. Hurry.”

The government bell in Palazzo Vecchio. I've never heard it before, but everyone knows about it: it rings only for a crisis. A call to arms? I throw on a dress. That's when I realize the bell is now silent. It should have kept ringing to wake the whole city.

We meet at the main door: Aunt Nanina and her slave girl and the two men servants, Carlo and Enrico, and me. We race to the piazza, along with half the population of Florence, many carrying swords and knives, some even carrying firearms. Anxiety to hear everything hushes the crowd. But the Palazzo Vecchio is dark.

Whoever rang that bell had something to announce. Something urgent that couldn't wait till morning. And he was stopped after only two rings. This feels more ominous than any news could be. Aunt Nanina hooks her bird-thin arm through mine and draws me close as we rush home.

The next morning we expect the worst. The mystery of the bell leaves us skittish, jumping at noises, glancing over shoulders. Aunt Nanina tells me to stay in today. She takes over the kitchen, saying it's been years since she made a meal. She throws chunks of old bread and pieces of aged pecorino into chicken broth, talking the whole time in coddling tones, the way she talks to Bartolomeo. The guileless attempt to take care of me, the need to protect someone in this crazy moment, makes her seem like egg-shells—easy to break. Her eyes have sunk into her skull. When was the last time she slept?

Finally, on Friday, the seventh of November, Uncle Bernardo tells us Piero is returning to Florence. All this time he has been with the King of France. He says nothing more—and we know not to question him further.

If Piero returns, Giuliano must show himself, too.

I can't stay still; I mend a pillowcase and help knead bread and walk in circles while Aunt Nanina plays the pianoforte. That night I can't sleep.

On the eighth, I make Carlo accompany me to the Palazzo Vecchio. I'm sure Piero will go there first. But he doesn't show up. No one knows where he is.

When I return to Aunt Nanina's, a man awaits me. It's Alberto from Villa Vignamaggio. Papà sent him to accompany me home in the morning. When I object, Aunt Nanina says I must go, for Uncle Bernardo insists I obey Papà.

Women's unity has collapsed.

I grit my teeth as I pack. Giuliano could well be preparing to enter the city just as I am preparing to leave. Another sleepless night.

But in the morning, it turns out the gates of the city have all been closed. No one can leave. I have a reprieve. And, though it's Sunday, ordinary church services are suspended. So I'm back in the piazza outside the Palazzo Vecchio, this time with Alberto, still dressed in my shift, but without Uccio. News comes that Piero is approaching the city gates with five hundred men on horseback.

One of them must be Giuliano.

But why five hundred men? The town won't open the gates. How could he expect they would, coming with a private army? Then the government, or what there is left of it, decrees that Piero can come inside the gates only if he comes alone.

The crowd in the piazza buzzes with energy at the news. Will Piero's army storm the gates? There's an edge to everyone's words. We're just people standing together, unarmed civilians, but I feel surrounded by swords; blood is about to flow.

A moment later Piero appears on horseback. He smiles. I'm shocked; his face shows no effect of suffering, while the rest of us are wrecked. Is the man entirely impervious? He scans the crowd, and I duck behind Alberto.

Piero's not wholly alone, despite the decree—a band of foot-men precedes him and a few men on horseback flank him. I search their faces. No Giuliano. The crowds part as the procession rides up to the Palazzo Vecchio.

Piero is refused entrance. If he wants to go into the seat of government, he must enter alone, and not through the front, but through the small side door. Such humiliation is beyond comprehension. The crowd comes alive at the realization that Piero has truly fallen from power. The unoustable has been ousted. They jeer and throw stones.

Piero turns in a circle on his horse, looking every which way. The bravura of before is gone; his face is drawn and hard. He gallops with his men up the road in the direction of the Duomo, toward the Medici palace. Of course: he's going home.

We run after him. A surging mob, flowing like a torrent through the road. I'm carried along from behind. I couldn't get out of this current if I tried. Alberto has disappeared. There is nothing to do but hold myself high and run.

A cry rises, “
Popolo e libertà
—‘Long live the people. Long live liberty.'” It's taken up by the mob. “Long live the people. Long live liberty.”

Shopkeepers frantically run to protect their stores against an unpredictable mob. The bell of the Palazzo Vecchio rings. It's a call to arms now if ever there was one. It rings and rings. More people rush into the street with random and antique weapons.

By the time I get to the Medici palace, Piero has already remounted his horse and left. The mob goes wild. Some enter the palace. Some flow out over Florence, like a flood. People hurry to barricade their homes against it.

I press my back to the wall across the road from the Medici palace. Through the rest of the day people sack the palace, the cellars, the gardens. They steal furniture, glassware, chandeliers, statues, vases, anything that can be carted away. The palace bleeds a stream of gold, silver, and bronze. A man carries away the Botticelli that so entranced Leonardo da Vinci the first time I set foot in the Medici palace. I'm grateful Leonardo is in Milan, so he cannot see the undoing in a single day of a treasury of art that took five generations to amass.

Despite the sweat and grime, I recognize many looters, though I couldn't say names. Some of them talked with Papà the night Giuliano disappeared. Some are friends of Uncle Bernardo, or they pretended to be. Important men—respectable men. Even elite members of the government. Looting.

A man yanks a painting from another man's arms. They struggle. The first stabs the second. A scream escapes me. The stabbed man lies thrashing in the road. People race past. I wring my hands. Tears gush. I take a step forward.

But a young man stops, thank heavens. He kneels beside the wounded man. He cuts free the man's money pouch and runs. I clap both hands over my mouth to stop the scream this time, and press back against the wall again. I sink to a squat. The wounded man no longer moves.

Two men stop an arm's length from me and talk over their booty. One says the city has offered two thousand ducats for whoever should slay Piero, and one thousand for whoever should slay Cardinal Giovanni. There's no mention of Giuliano.

Evening comes. Groups disperse. The streets are nearly empty. I stand, my back still to the wall. I smell destruction before I see it: flames rise from a roof down the road. Whose home is burning? Someone loyal to Piero, no doubt.

Poor Aunt Nanina. Poor Uncle Bernardo. Poor little Bartolomeo. Oh, Lord in heaven. This is the end of reason. The end of everything. Savonarola said that Florence would become the center of hell. This is the stench of hell. I'm crying and I can't stop.

“He's safe.”

I jump at the voice. A fat monk stands beside me. He pulls back his hood just enough for me to recognize him. Is this a specter? “Cardinal Giovanni?”

“Hush. Giuliano is gone. With Piero. To Bologna.”

“Thank the Lord.”

“He'll send you word.”

“I won't be at Aunt Nanina's. I'm going home as soon as the gates open again.”

“Is there anyone at home you trust?”

The question stabs like a dagger through the center of my being, for I can no longer be sure of Papà. He is against Piero; who knows how he might treat Giuliano? But there is someone—and she can't stay mad forever. “I have a friend. Silvia. She lives in a cottage to the northeast of our villa. I can walk there in minutes.”

“All right. Get off the streets now. Go.”

Cardinal Giovanni walks down the road, away from the center of town, bent forward at the waist like any monk in prayer. That he can hide in sight so coolly, that he could deliver a message, that he could even find me in the first place, all of it leaves me gaping. One more surprise on this stupefying night. I watch till black swallows him.

CHAPTER Nineteen

IT IS THE ELEVENTH
of December. Caterina and I chop vegetables in the kitchen at Villa Vignamaggio. This is our new routine; it consumes our attention. Smaller and smaller pieces. This is our rope of salvation. Papà has grown haggard, sinking under the weight of the problems of this world—but Caterina and I are suspended. We swing together, in silence.

Silvia appears at the door and looks at me. When I first came home from Florence and told her all that had happened, she listened without a word. Giuliano's and my pledge to each other, the party, the messenger, the days of confusion and stealth wandering the streets, the plunder and burning of Florence, the message delivered by Cardinal Giovanni. She moved closer to me as I cried. She has still not spoken of forgiveness. But she no longer punishes me with coldness. We work as partners again. And we talk about everything, everything except our hopes for husbands.

I kiss Caterina on the cheek now, pull on the wool cape Old Sandra made for me, and rush out the door to Silvia and the rest of my daily routine.

Silvia links arms with me as we hurry to the silking building. The act is more friendly than anything she's done since our row. I squeeze her arm in gratitude. She clears her throat. “He did it. My pa is a stubborn blockhead. I'm betrothed.”

“Oh no.” I look at her, but her eyes stare straight ahead into the frigid air. “He can't really force you,” I say. “You have to agree. By law. You're not chattel.”

“Law,” she says scornfully. “Law protects them who don't need protecting.”

“That's not true. The law covers you.”

“And if I disobey my pa and he throws me out, what then? Ain't no law going to give me a roof over my head and food in my belly.” She forms a fist with her free hand and punches it into her middle.

“Don't do that!”

“I'm getting married, Elisabetta. I'm getting married, and ain't nothing I can do to stop it.” Big tears roll down her cheeks.

I try to pull her close, but she rips free. When her sobs finally slow, I ask, “Who to?”

“Alberto.”

I don't know what to say. “Alberto used to live in the city, at least. Maybe he'll return. Maybe that's why your papà chose him, because he knows you want city life.”

“My pa chose him because of your pa.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Alberto's the one your pa sent to Florence to bring you back home. He's won your pa's trust.”

He's won mine, as well. The olive harvest was brought to Greve for pressing last week so I sent Alberto to pick up the oil today. He'll be in charge of unloading it and storing it away tomorrow. He's more reliable than the others, and I lean on him like I used to lean on Cristiano. But I won't say that now, of course. “I don't see what my papà's trust has to do with anything.”

“Lord, Elisabetta, do you have to stay dumb your whole life? Workers are being sent away right and left, times are so bad. Pa figures that if he weds me to your pa's most trusted worker, there's less of a chance of his own ruin. And he's old now. If Alberto becomes the next head worker, then my parents get to stay living here.”

We reach the silking building and hurry to light a fire for warmth. Rocco has left us a pile of tools on the floor, just as I asked him to. We pull on work gloves and sit down to oil tools.

“Maybe it's not that selfish, what your papà's done. I told you what I saw in the streets of Florence. Maybe he's right to put security first.”

“And how will you feel if your pa puts security first?”

I jerk my head back in horror. “You're right. I'm so sorry I said that.”

“It infuriates me. Pa says I live in dreams, while there he is, living in a nightmare. He's so stupid. This mess with France ain't going to last.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“If it was, your pa would be packing everyone up and heading for a different Italian state. But he ain't. He's staying put. That means Florence will be strong and rich again. And I'll be stuck in the country with a poor man for the rest of my days.”

“Lord, you have a lot of confidence in Papà.”

“He's the only rich man I ever known. Why shouldn't I have confidence in him? This is all turning out so bad for me. I have half a mind to pack a bag and walk down the road like Cristiano did.”