What Remains of the Fair Simonetta (21 page)

Chapter 35

Antonella and Amerigo sat idling on a bench in the
piazza
facing the Arno River, when I hastily rejoined them.

“Let’s go!” I insisted, grabbing them both by the collar from behind. A passerby stopped to stare, as I manhandled the servants in my holy robe.

“Where is the painter?” Antonella asked.

Holy crap
.

I had just darted away from him with no explanation, right after yelling at the Abbess like a lunatic. I left Sandro alone with her, and panicked that the Abbess might give me away, tell him I’m an imposter, and reinforce his decision not to see me anymore.

“He’s back in the church, Antonella. He doesn’t want to meet with me again. Can we just go now?”

I did an impatient dance, and when they didn’t immediately spring to their feet, I dashed off alongside the river towards the bridge, without even turning around to see if the Abbess, Sandro, or Leonardo pursued me.

I grabbed the mounds of gray wool that made up my skirt and sprinted across the
Ponte alla Carraia,
with my veil flapping in the air. When I reached the tavern on the other side, I turned around to find no one but Antonella and Amerigo behind me. While I waited for them to catch up, I tried to concoct an explanation for my hasty flight, but I was interrupted by a drunkard who threw himself down on my feet.

“Sisser, can you help an ol’ man?”

“With what?” I asked impatiently.

“I ‘ave shinned.”

“Well, knock it off!” I barked, as I kicked him from my feet, anxious to dull my night with some
vino.

He looked up at me in shock, and I recognized him as the drunk, Paolo, that had tried to pick me up in the tavern the week before.

“Sisser, you’re so be-u-tiful,” Paolo blithered as he struggled to his feet. He reached into his pockets for coins as he had done the week prior.

“Seriously? Have you no shame? I’m a goddamn nun!”

“I’s jus’ tryin’ to make a donation,” Paolo slurred.

“Thanks,” I said, as I ripped a flask of booze out of his hands, and downed whatever horrible solvent it contained. “Now, say a hundred Hail Marys, you swine!” I stomped off towards Antonella and Amerigo, who had already dirtied up their faces.

“Giovanna!” I grumbled to Antonella, “Where do I change outta this crap?”

“At the brothel, of course.” She shrugged and pointed in front of us. I followed her up the stairs to the level above the tavern. I hadn’t noticed it as such, since it lacked a neon sign, red light, or any other markings that would indicate it as a den of sin in my time.

“
Buenasera,
Guido,” greeted a blonde, heavily made-up prostitute poised behind a counter.

Amerigo leaned onto the counter and smiled. “
Buenasera,
Vittoria. Could our companion use a room to change her clothing?”

Vittoria scanned me up and down and rolled her eyes as if she’d seen it all, then pointed to a door at the end of the hall. I yanked the servant’s dress out of Antonella’s satchel, and scurried towards the room, quickly shutting myself behind the door in a small, curtained dressing area, before worming my way out of the wooly habit.

When I pulled the frock over my head, I sent the veil flying under the drape. I reached down to retrieve it and couldn’t help but spy a larger room on the other side of the curtain where a prostitute was servicing a customer.

I crouched down and marveled for a moment at the naked, curvaceous woman, as she stripped off the john’s clothing in the candlelight, the look of ecstasy on his face as she caressed him, and whispered to him, and made him feel like he was the only man in the world. It was not at all the
wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am
sort of encounter I would’ve expected. It had been so long since I’d felt that kind of physical pleasure, that even though the scenario wasn’t at all about love, I felt envy.

I thought about Sandro, and his avoidance, and pondered the fact that the following day I’d be given—wrapped like a gift box—to the handsome Giuliano. If I couldn’t have the one I loved, should I embrace the situation and try to enjoy sex with Mr. Wrong? Relish in the knowledge that I’d be the only woman in history to be devirginized twice?

The door opened behind me, and struck me in the side, causing me to somersault naked right into the action. The john smiled broadly as though he were the recipient of a special two-for-the-price-of-one bonus, but I quickly crawled back to the safe side of the curtain.

“Can you not do anything by yourself?” Antonella scoffed from behind me.

“Apparently not,” I answered in shame, as I got up from the floor.

“I shall be there to instruct you at the Medici’s, Simonetta. Do not fear.”

I just sighed and helplessly raised my arms up like the puppet I was, so that Antonella could put on my servant’s gown.

The air was still, as I sauntered down the outdoor stairs behind Antonella and Amerigo, from the brothel to the tavern. The festive atmosphere severely belied my mood, but then I saw Mariano and remembered I had a purpose in this world that didn’t just involve my love life.

I plopped myself into an empty stool at the bar next to Mariano, bearing a Cheshire-cat grin. “Mariano Filipepi! Fancy meeting you here!” I enthused.

He slowly looked up from his goblet, without a smile for me. “I am always here, Stacia. It is you who have been missing.”

“Oh? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. Is everything all right with you?” Ever since I’d awakened in this world, we’d never been farther apart.

“As you know, my brother, Jacopo, has been quite ill.”

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry.”

“Sandro has not been to see him in several days.” Mariano frowned.

“I’d tell him to go to his uncle.” I said, scratching my head, “But I don’t think I’ll be seeing him for a while.”

“May I ask you, Stacia, what is the nature of your relationship with Sandro?”

Without thinking I blurted my answer. “I assure you, it’s not his doing…but I’m in love with him.”

I decided I had to tell Mariano the truth. What was I in this world for, if not to do such a thing? I needed to prove to Mariano that his son was worth loving, even if he was to be loved by the Fair Simonetta.

“You? In love with
him
?”

“I’m aware that I’m a married woman, but it wasn’t my choice to marry. It was arranged between our parents. Even Lorenzo had a hand in it. If I could choose, it wouldn’t be Marco or Giuliano. I would choose Sandro.” Without another word, Mariano stood from his barstool, and stormed out of the tavern.

Chapter 36

A crowd camped outside the Palazzo Vespucci beginning in the very early hours of the morning as if they were waiting for a Black Friday sale at Walmart. Uncertain if I’d slept at all, I was awake and in a haze when Antonella came to prepare me. I spent the majority of the night pondering what I had botched in Simonetta’s name. Not only had I managed to increase Mariano’s hostility towards Sandro, but I’d also ruined Sandro’s friendship with Simonetta. If I hadn’t pursued Sandro in an intimate way, he wouldn’t have wanted to avoid me. And something about my feelings for Sandro sent Mariano over the edge, leaving the father and son relationship still severely impaired.

I hadn’t even bothered to try on the dress that Giuliano had given me. I knew it would fit perfectly just as the others had. And it was just as beautiful, made of cascading white taffeta, lace and pearls, spangled with gold brocade—fit for a wedding dress of a modern day celebrity.

Lorenzo had sent over an attendant from his own household to assist Antonella with what would be my most complicated hairstyle yet, and the most bejeweled. Braids, weaved and twisted with strings of pearls, and speckled with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds dazzled my head. The process took several hours, but when complete, I sparkled from head to toe.

“You must take off that god-awful necklace,” Antonella chastised, referring to my Miraculous Medal.

“I won’t, Antonella. Cover it up if you must, but the necklace stays.” I suspected this was just what the Abbess wanted, for me to take off the one thing that connected me with my former self. I knew it was possible that if I did remove it, my consciousness would vanish from this world without even having to wait for Simonetta’s predestined death. Selfishly, I clung to it, and refused to yield.

Carlo guarded my door at all times, and when he finally unlocked it and released me from my cage, Marco was waiting in the sitting room. I couldn’t bring myself to even glance in his direction.

“I came to see you off,” Marco said weakly. “I shall not be seated next to you at the joust.” I snubbed him with my silence, without even casting him a glance. “You must know it is not I who has done this,” Marco said as he pointed to the door.

“It’s your father then?”

“Yes, he will let nothing foil his ambitions.” Marco lowered his head.

“Ambitions for what?”

“The election to the Priorate, of course.”

“So you don’t want a seat for yourself on the Council of the
Signoria
?”

“No, Simonetta. I have no political ambitions of my own. And now I realize you have been made a pawn in my father’s scheme.”

“Then
do
something about it, Marco! Get me out of this arrangement,” I wailed.

“I am sorry, Simonetta. I cannot,” he muttered, before scampering out of my sitting room.

Antonella rushed over to me with a handkerchief to pat my tearing eyes. “You shall ruin all my work.” She smiled sympathetically. I felt empty and had no words left to utter.

Carlo escorted Antonella and me down the stairs, where the litter awaited, now covered in white roses. We climbed into it while still in the
palazzo
, to avoid being crushed by the paparazzi-like crowd outside. Carlo, along with the three other members of the retinue, carried us while another twenty men, clad in the Vespucci livery, surrounded the litter. I felt claustrophobic from the cheering sea of people during the seemingly endless walk to the Piazza Santa Croce.

An elaborate arena had been constructed, with fresh dirt packed over the stone of the
piazza
, and “lists” defining the borders of the battlefield. A grandstand in front of the church was peopled with the VIPs of Florence, with a large, gold throne ringside at its center. The Basilica of Santa Croce, the future
Temple of Glories
—so called because it would one day house the graves of Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Galileo, to name a few—was still in its humble beginnings. The glorious façade which would be designed in the 1800s by Nicolas Matas, was at this time just bare Florentine limestone.

As the now swollen retinue escorted me to my throne, I was thankful to have used the chamber pot before I left the
palazzo
, as the crushing mass of humanity resembled that of New Years Eve in Times Square.

The crowd roared as I took my seat, with Antonella on my right side, Lorenzo to my left, and the who’s-who of Florence behind me. It was standing room only for the non-noble citizens of the city, but it seemed as though the entire population made it to the event. Spectators hung from every window, and huddled on every rooftop of the three-story buildings that lined the north and south edges of the
piazza
.

Shortly after we took our seats, a trumpet sounded, then a stout man wearing a red velvet tunic with a matching cap announced via a medieval megaphone, “I,
Il Capitani di Parte Guelfa,
declare on this twenty-ninth day of January, in the fourteen-hundred and seventy-fifth year of our Lord, that the joust celebrating the creation of a defensive league between Florence, Milan, and Venice, begins!”

Lorenzo tried to narrate the events to me, but the cheering crowd became deafening as the riders took the arena one by one, starting with Piero Vespucci. With head high and chest out, Piero rode out on a black palfrey, draped in the trappings of Vespucci red with blue trim dotted in gold wasps. Eleven other riders followed, geared up in shining armor, and each proceeded by a standard of fringed Alexandrian taffeta. Filippino was among them, riding a common horse, or “rouncy” as Lorenzo described it. The banners, while created by a variety of artists, had certain uniformity to them as they were all set in a flowery meadow. But none was as beautiful as Giuliano’s.

Giuliano’s presence was made known via two men at arms, several pages, and nine trumpeters on horseback, each of whom carried a fringed pennant bearing the Medici coat of arms. The tunics and hoods of the trumpeters were decorated with tinsel feathers, and their sleeves painted with olive branches. I had never seen such magnificent pageantry, and I’d been to Medieval Times and every Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas.

A lone rider in full armor, whose horse was covered with trappings of taffeta painted with olive boughs and flames, entered the arena. He carried a large blue pole which featured Sandro’s masterpiece, flowing in the wind. The banner’s sheer beauty rendered the crowd silent in awe. Tears came to my eyes, and I hoped that Sandro was there when the announcer named the painter Botticelli, “The Cherished Child of the Gods.”

I swatted at Antonella when she tried to dab my eyes again and snatched the handkerchief from her. It felt better to let the grief flow, as the grand banner was followed by Giuliano himself. He circled the arena on his dapple-gray horse, introduced as “Orso,” specially loaned from the Duke of Urbino. The majestic animal wore full equine armor and trappings of purple velvet. Lorenzo explained that Giuliano’s outfit cost more than a thousand florins and was made of silver, gold, and precious gems. The sleeves of his over-the-top surcoat were garnished with pearls embroidered into Gothic letters that spelled
La Sans Pareille
, presumably a dedication to me,
The Unparalleled One,
as Giuliano had called me
.
His ornate helmet, made by the hands of Verrocchio, was carried by a page. It was engraved with the head of Medusa and had a statuette of a lady at its crest.

Behind Giuliano followed a troop of horsemen, retainers, a trumpeter, two drummers, and three pipers—everything short of a partridge in a pear tree.

Giuliano halted Orso, dismounted in a single bound, and bowed to me as the crowd went wild. He stared for an uncomfortable moment, as if waiting for me to do something. Antonella reached for the handkerchief I held, but I fought her for it. I was tired of her doting, and wanted to wipe my own damn eyes. Giuliano waited patiently, as Antonella ripped and tugged at the square of fabric.

“Let me have it!” Antonella whispered through clenched teeth.

“What for?” I demanded, refusing to yield.

“It is the lady’s favor for the knight, you half-wit!”

“Oh. Oops,” I released the wet, boogery linen so she could gift it to Giuliano.

He turned the soiled handkerchief over in his gloved hands with a look of disgust, before waving it in the air triumphantly, then tying it to his breastplate. “I win for you, Simonetta!” Giuliano shouted. “The Queen of Beauty!” Then he scooped up the helmet from the page’s hands, and slid it over his head in one swift motion.

The group contributing to the pomp of the occasion, but not the combat, left the arena in an organized succession until only the thirteen competitors remained. I had imagined this as an all-day event, two jousters at a time battling in one-on-one combat until only Giuliano prevailed. The reality was more of a mêlée of equine anarchy. When the horn sounded, the thirteen jousters from the many Italian city-states rode and plunged in a chaotic frenzy.

I knew Sandro would be horrified to see his godson, Filippino, attacked with large, pointy objects, wielded by grown men well-trained in mortal combat. I scanned the crowd for Sandro, to catch a glimpse of his soulful eyes, but could see nothing but a deluge of nameless faces. I was happy when Lorenzo explained to me that the joust was more for entertainment purposes than the Roman gladiator games of old. All competitors, though bloodied and bruised, were expected to survive the challenge.

Filippino was eliminated early in the games. I sobbed when Piero’s lance splintered on Filippino’s breastplate, spraying like the seeds of a dandelion, and sending him flying to the ground in a cloud of dust. Thankfully, he was agile enough to escape the stampede of hooves galloping all around him as he limped, defeated, out of the arena. A squire took the reins of his rouncy, and both the horse and his plate armor were confiscated, leaving Filippino stripped down to his chainmail. These items would be given to the ultimate winner, which I found ironic since the horse, trappings, and armor belonged to Giuliano in the first place.

Giuliano weaved through the mayhem on his dapple-gray charger, allowing the competition to eliminate one another without him even having to tarnish his lance. It was difficult to keep track of the many competitors who were ousted within a short duration; some seemed to gallop willingly towards their own defeat. Before long, Giuliano was left alone in the lists with only a Venetian knight, a Milanese
condottiere,
and my dearest father-in-law, Piero, to keep him company.

I silently cheered, as the Venetian knight strode towards Giuliano with his leveled lance. But just as it appeared he was about to make contact, someone from below the stands pulled on the right bottom of my bushy dress. I kicked at the annoying intruder, as I was now fully engrossed in the spectacle.

Should the Venetian win, surely he’d expect only a platonic exchange from me as his prize.

However, Giuliano swerved at the last second, averting the strike with graceful ease, then spun around and charged quickly back, knocking the Venetian from his horse with one swift motion, thereby proving himself a skilled athlete. Giuliano lifted his visor just long enough to reveal his smiling eyes to the crowd.

I felt the tug again, and turned to my right to look down at the intruder under the grandstand, with adrenaline racing through my veins. I poised my heel, ready to strike another blow at whatever drunkard wanted a piece of me, but I quickly recognized the heavy-lidded hazel eyes peering at me from below. “Sandro?”

“Yes, Simonetta. It is I,” Sandro replied. Antonella gasped when he reached from under the wood slats of the bleachers, and gently took my hand into his. “I know what I said to you last night, but since you fled from me, I have been unable to paint, or sleep, or think of anything else. I am in love with you, Simonetta.”

My heart melted, and the tears—which had never really abated—now flowed freely. But I was afraid to speak since I was still in the company of the Medici and their supporters, surrounding me on all sides: Lorenzo and family to my left, his uncle Tommaso Soderini to Antonella’s right, Angelo Poliziano only a few rows behind, and many others I recognized, but could not name, in between. As I glanced around, all eyes were riveted on the events transpiring on the field, and before I could utter a reply to Sandro, the Medici and their supporters stood and roared at the action. Giuliano had just unhorsed the Milanese
condottiere,
leaving only himself and Piero active in the joust.

Longingly, I gazed back at Sandro with my tearful eyes, knowing no matter who won the joust at that point, I’d be given to Giuliano to seal Piero’s rank as the Priorate of Florence.

“I know it is an extraordinary thing I ask,” Sandro whispered again, “but do not give yourself to Giuliano. I cannot bear it.” Sandro released my hand, “Please, Simonetta, find a way,” he said, as he moved quickly away from me. I watched as a blur of men in Vespucci livery pursued him under the stands.

Antonella looked at me with sympathetic eyes, before turning back to the arena. An intermission was called by the
Capitani di Parte Guelfa,
and Giuliano and Piero were making their way for the recess.

“I must leave you for a time,” Antonella said, as a parade of trumpeters took the arena for a Renaissance half-time show.