Juliet

V.III

Siena , A.D. 1340

TRAPPED IN HER ROOM at the very top of the Tolomei tower, Giulietta knew nothing of what was going on in the city below. She had been kept there ever since the day of Tebaldo’s funeral, and no one had been allowed to visit her. The window shutters had been nailed in place by one of the Tolomei guards, and food was delivered through a slit in the door, but that hardly mattered, since-for the longest time-she took none of it.

For the first few hours of her imprisonment, she had implored whoever could hear her through the door to let her out. “Kindest aunt!” she had begged, her teary cheek against the door, “please do not treat me this way! Remember whose daughter I am!… Dear cousins? Can you hear me?” But when no one had dared to respond, she had begun yelling at the guards instead, cursing them for obeying the orders of a devil in the guise of man.

When no one responded with a single word, she eventually lost her spirit. Weak with grief, she lay on her bed with a sheet over her head, unable to think of anything but Romeo’s molested body and her own inability to prevent his grisly death. Only now did fearful servants come to the door to offer food and drink, but Giulietta refused it all, even water, in the hope of expediting her own demise and following her lover to Paradise before he got too far ahead.

Her only duty left in life, she felt, was to pen a secret letter to her sister Giannozza. It was meant as a goodbye note, but in the end it became just one letter out of many, written by the light of a candle stump and hidden under a loose floorboard with all the others. To think, she wrote, that she had once been so intrigued by this world and everyone in it; now she understood that Friar Lorenzo had been right all along. “The mortal world is a world of dust,” he used to say. “Everywhere you step it crumbles away right beneath your foot, and if you do not walk carefully, you will fall over the edge and into limbo.” This limbo was where she must surely be right now, thought Giulietta-the abyss from which no prayers could be heard.

GIANNOZZA, SHE KNEW, was no stranger to this sort of misery. For all his novel ideas that his daughters should be able to read and write, their father had been an old-fashioned man when it came to marriage. Daughters, to him, were emissaries that could be sent out to build alliances with important people in foreign places, and so when his wife’s cousin-a nobleman with a large estate north of Rome-had expressed an interest in closer ties with the Tolomeis, he had informed Giulietta that she would have to go. She was, after all, four minutes older than her sister, Giannozza, and it is the duty of the eldest to go first.

Hearing this news, the sisters had spent many days in tears at the prospect of being torn apart and settled at such a distance from each other. But their father was unbending, and their mother even more so-after all, the groom was her cousin and no stranger-and in the end the girls had approached their parents with a humble proposal.

“Father,” Giannozza had said, as she was the only one bold enough to speak her mind, “Giulietta is honored that you have such plans for her, but she begs you to consider whether it might not be better to send me instead. The truth is, her heart was always bent on the convent, and she fears she would not make a very happy bride to anyone other than Christ. I, on the other hand, have no objection to an earthly marriage; in fact, I believe I should rather like to run a house on my own. And so we were wondering”-now, for the first time, Giannozza had eyed their mother as well, hoping for her aquiescence-“whether you would consider dispatching us both together-me as a bride, and Giulietta as a novice at a nearby convent. That way, we can see each other whenever we wish, and you will not have to worry about our well-being.”

Seeing that Giulietta was so against the idea of marriage, their father finally agreed to let Giannozza take her place. But when it came to the other half of the plan, he remained dismissive. “If Giulietta will not marry now,” he had said, seated behind his large desk, arms crossed, as his women stood before him in supplication, “she will marry later, when she grows out of this… nonsense.” He had shaken his head, angry at this interference in his affairs. “I should never have taught you girls to read! I suspect you have been reading the Bible behind my back-that is enough to fill a girl’s head with folly!”

“But Father-”

Only now had their mother stepped forward, eyes ablaze. “Shame on you,” she had hissed at her daughters, “for putting your father in this situation! We are not poor, and yet you ask him to behave as if we were! You both have dowries large enough to tempt a prince! But we have been selective. Many have come calling for you, Giulietta, but your father has turned them all away, because he knew we could do better. And now you want him to rejoice in seeing you as a nun?… As if we did not have the means and connections for you to marry? Shame on you for putting your own selfish desires before the dignity of your family!”

And so Giannozza had been married to a man she had never seen before, and had spent her wedding night with a groom thrice her age, who had the eyes of her mother but the hands of a stranger. When she said goodbye to her family the next morning-to leave her home forever with her new husband-she had clung to them all one by one, without a word, her lips pressed tightly together to prevent herself from cursing her parents.

The words came later, in endless letters from her new home, addressed not to Giulietta directly, but to their friend, Friar Lorenzo, that he might deliver her missives in stealth, when he had Giulietta in confession in the chapel. These were letters that could never be forgotten, letters that must haunt the reader forever, and Giulietta would often allude to them in her own writing, such as when she agreed with her sister that “there are, indeed, as you say, men in this world who thrive on evil, men who live only to see others suffer.” But she would always encourage Giannozza to look at the positive side of things-her husband was old and sickly, and would surely die while she was still young, and even though she was not allowed out of doors, at least the view from her castle was magnificent-and would even go as far as to point out that “contrary to what you say, my dearest, there is some pleasure to be found in the company of men. They are not all rotten through and through.”

In her farewell letter to Giannozza, however, composed in her prison cell the day after Tebaldo’s funeral, Giulietta could no longer speak so bravely in favor of the future. “You were right,” she wrote simply, “and I was wrong. When life hurts more than death, it is not worth living.”

AND SO SHE HAD decided to die, and to refuse all nourishment until her body gave in, setting her soul free to reunite with Romeo. But on the third day of her hunger strike-her lips parched and her head throbbing-a new thought began to haunt her, namely, the question of where exactly in Paradise she would have to go in order to find him. It was obviously a vast place-it had to be-and there was no saying whether the two of them would be sent to the same region. In fact, she rather feared they would not.

While she might not be perfectly blameless in the eyes of God, she was still an innocent maid; Romeo, on the other hand, had undoubtedly left behind a long trail of mischief. Furthermore, there had been no funerary rites and no prayers said over his body, and so it was even doubtful whether he would go to Paradise at all. Perhaps he was doomed to wander around as a ghost, wounded and bloody, until-if ever-some kind Samaritan took pity on him and finally put his body to rest.

Giulietta sat up in bed with a gasp. If she died now, who was to make sure Romeo was properly buried? Leave it to the Tolomeis to discover the body next time there was a family funeral-in all likelihood her own-and they would most certainly give it anything but peace. No, she thought, reaching out for the water at last, her weak fingers barely able to grasp the cup, she would have to stay alive until she had spoken with Friar Lorenzo and explained the situation to him.

Where on earth was the monk? In her misery, Giulietta had not wanted to speak to anyone, not even her old friend, and it had been a relief that he had never come to see her. But now-her heart set on a plan she could not possibly execute on her own-she was furious with him for not being at her side. Only later, after wolfing down every scrap of food she could find in the room, did it occur to her that her uncle Tolomei might have prohibited the monk’s visits altogether, in an attempt at preventing him from spreading reports of her misery.

Pacing up and down the floor, occasionally pausing to peek out through a crack in the sealed shutters to guess the time of day, Giulietta eventually concluded that death would have to wait. Not because she had a desire to live, but because there were still two tasks left in life that only she could accomplish. One of them was to get hold of Friar Lorenzo-or some other holy man more bent on obeying the law of God than that of her uncle-and to have him ensure that Romeo was properly buried; the other was to make Salimbeni suffer in a way no man had ever suffered before.

MONNA AGNESE DIED on All Saints’ Day, after having been confined to her bed for over half a year. There were those who whispered that the poor lady had stayed alive for so long simply to annoy her husband, Messer Salimbeni, whose new wedding clothes had been laid out for wear ever since his August engagement to Giulietta Tolomei.

The funeral was held at Rocca di Tentennano, the impregnable Salimbeni fortress in Val d’Orcia. No sooner had he tossed earth over the coffin than the widower took off for Siena with the fluttering dispatch of a winged cupid. Only one child accompanied him on his return to town: his nineteen-year-old son Nino-already a hardened Palio assassin, according to some-whose own mother had preceded Monna Agnese into the Salimbeni sepulchre several years earlier, following a similar affliction, commonly known as starvation.

Tradition demanded a period of mourning after such a loss, but few were surprised to see the great man so soon back in town. Salimbeni was renowned for his celerity of mind; while other men spent several days mourning the death of a wife or child, he would shrug it off within hours, never missing an important business transaction.

Despite his occasional, suspect dealings and tireless rivalry with the house of Tolomei, Salimbeni was a man most people could not help but admire to the point of toadying. Whenever he was present in a gathering, he was the undisputed center of attention. And whenever he sought to amuse, everyone responded with laughter, even if they had barely heard what he said. His unstinting ways endeared him immediately to strangers, and his clients knew that once you had earned his trust, you would be handsomely rewarded. Understanding the dynamics of the city better than anyone, he knew when to hand out food to the poor, and he knew when to stand firm in the face of the government. It was no coincidence that he liked to dress like a Roman emperor in a fine woolen toga with scarlet edging, for he ran Siena like a small empire of his own, and anyone who opposed his authority was treated as a traitor to the city at large.

In the light of Salimbeni’s political and fiscal savvy, it astounded the people of Siena to witness his enduring infatuation with Messer Tolomei’s melancholy niece. There he was, bowing politely to her pale figure at mass, when she could barely look at him. Not only did she despise him for what had happened to her family-her tragedy was, by now, widely known-but he was also the man who had driven her lover Romeo out of town after incriminating him in the suspicious murder of Tebaldo Tolomei.

Why, people asked themselves, did a man of Salimbeni’s stature put his dignity at stake in order to marry a girl who could never warm to him, were they both to live a thousand years? She was beautiful, certainly, and most young men were able to conjure up Giulietta’s perfect lips and dreamy eyes whenever they felt the need. But it was quite another thing for a man as settled as Salimbeni to toss aside all respectability and claim her for his own so soon after her sweetheart’s disappearance and his own wife’s passing.

“It is all a matter of honor!” said some, approving of the engagement. “Romeo challenged Salimbeni to a fight over Giulietta, and such a fight can only have one logical outcome: The winner must live, the loser die, and the lady fall to the man standing, whether he wants her or not.”

Others were more candid and confessed that they saw the touch of the devil in Salimbeni’s actions. “Here is a man,” they would whisper to Maestro Ambrogio over wine in taverns late at night, “whose power has long been checked by no one. Now at last that power has turned malignant, and as such it is threatening not only us, but him as well. You have said it yourself, Maestro: Salimbeni’s virtues have ripened to a point where they are turning into vice, and, now that they are long sated, his immense appetites for glory and influence must naturally seek new sources of nourishment.”

To name an example of such nourishment was not mere guesswork; there were certain females about town who would readily testify to Salimbeni’s increasingly wicked ways.

From being a man who sought to please and be pleased, Salimbeni had, one lady told the Maestro, gradually come to resent those who too readily bent to his wishes. He had begun to seek out the unwilling, or the downright hostile, in order that he might have reason to fully exercise his faculties of dominance, and nothing pleased him more than an encounter with someone-most often a defiant foreigner newly arrived-who did not yet know that he was a man who must be obeyed.

But even defiant foreigners listen to friendly advice, and before long, Salimbeni was once again, much to his irritation, met by nothing but sickening smiles and charades whenever he ventured out on the town in what he considered disguise. Most business owners would have liked nothing more than to bar their door to the rapacious customer, but in the absence of men willing to enforce the law against the tyrant, how could private industry ever be safe from such infringement? And so the satyr play was allowed to continue, its lead on a perennial quest for ever more worthwhile challenges to his potency, while the chorus of people left in his wake could do little but recount the myriad dangers of hubris and the tragic blindness to reason that will, invariably, ensue.

“So you see, Maestro,” concluded the lady-always happy to exchange gossip with those of her neighbors who did not spit in the street when they saw her-“this certain man’s obsession with that certain young lady is no mystery at all.” She leaned on her broom and waved him closer, anxious that no one overhear her insight. “Here is a girl-a lovely, nubile creature-who is not only the niece of his enemy, but who, herself, has every reason in the world to despise him. There is no risk of her fierce resistance degenerating into sweet submission… no risk that she will ever willingly admit him to her chamber. Do you see, Maestro? In marrying her, he will secure for himself the very wellspring of his preferred aphrodisiac-hatred-and that is a source that will surely never run dry.”

THE SALIMBENI WEDDING succeeded the Salimbeni funeral by a week and a day. The graveyard soil still moist underneath his fingernails, the widower wasted no time in dragging his next wife to the altar that she might forthwith infuse his sagging family tree with the luxurious blood of the Tolomeis.

For all his charisma and generosity, this blatant display of egoism was disgusting to the people of Siena. As the wedding procession passed through town, more than one bystander remarked on its semblance to a military triumph in Roman times; here came the booty from foreign lands-men and beasts hitherto unseen, and a chained queen upon a horse, crowned for mockery-all presented to the slack-jawed mob lining the road by an exulting general waving at them all from a passing chariot.

The sight of the tyrant in his glory like this brought back in full force all the suspicious murmurings that had followed Messer Salimbeni wherever he went since the Palio. Here was a man-some said-who had committed murder, not just once, but whenever he damn well pleased, and yet no one dared speak against his actions. Clearly, a man who could get away with such crimes-and force a wedding with an unwilling bride on top of it-was a man who could, and would, do anything to anyone.

As he stood by the wayside in the drizzling November rain, looking at the woman whose path had been crossed by every star in Heaven, Maestro Ambrogio found himself praying that someone would step forward and save Giulietta from her fate. In the eyes of the crowd she was no less beautiful now than she had been before, but it was evident to the painter-who had not seen her since the night before the fatal Palio-that hers had become the stony beauty of Athena, rather than the smiling charms of Aphrodite.

How he wished that Romeo would return to Siena this very instant and come charging into town with a band of foreign soldiers to steal away his lady before it was too late. But Romeo, said people, shaking their heads, was far away in distant lands, seeking comfort in women and drink where Salimbeni would never find him.

All of a sudden, standing there with his hood up against the rain, Maestro Ambrogio knew how he must conclude the large fresco in Palazzo Pubblico. There must be a bride, a sad girl lost in bitter memories, and a man on a horse leaving town, but leaning back in the saddle to hear a painter’s plea. Only by confiding in the silent wall, thought the Maestro, would he be able to ease the pain in his heart on this hateful day.

GIULIETTA KNEW IT as soon as she had finished the breakfast that was to be her last meal in Palazzo Tolomei: Monna Antonia had put something in her food to calm her down. Little did her aunt know that Giulietta had no intention of obstructing the wedding by refusing to go. How else would she get close enough to Salimbeni to make him suffer?

She saw it all in a haze-the wedding procession, the gaping street hordes, the stern assembly in the dark cathedral-and only when Salimbeni lifted her veil to reveal her bridal crown to the bishop and the awestruck wedding guests did she snap out of her trance and recoil at their gasps and his closeness.

The crown was a sinful vision of gold and sparkling stones, which rivaled anything that had ever been seen before, in Siena or elsewhere. It was a treasure more suited for royalty than for a sullen country girl, but then, it was not really for her. It was for him.

“How do you like my gift?” he asked, studying her face as he spoke. “It has two Ethiopian sapphires that reminded me of your eyes. Priceless. But then… they seemed so forlorn that I gave them the company of two Egyptian emeralds that reminded me of the way that fellow-Romeo-used to look at you.” He smiled at the shock in her face. “Tell me, my dear, do you not find me generous?”

Giulietta had to steel herself before addressing him. “You, Messere, are so much more than generous.”

He laughed delightedly at her reply. “I am glad to hear it. You and I will get along very well, I think.”

But the bishop had heard the evil remark and was not amused. Nor were the priests who attended the wedding feast later, and who entered the bridal chamber to bless it with holy water and incense, only to discover that Romeo’s cencio was spread out on top of the bed. “Messer Salimbeni!” they exclaimed, “you cannot make up your bed with this cencio!”

“Why not?” Salimbeni asked, wine goblet in hand, musicians in tow.

“Because,” they replied, “it belongs to another man. It was given to Romeo Marescotti by the Virgin Mary herself, and it was meant for his bed alone. Why would you challenge the will of Heaven?”

But Giulietta knew very well why Salimbeni had put the cencio on the bed, for he had put the green emeralds in her bridal crown for the very same reason: to remind her that Romeo was dead, and that there was nothing she could do to bring him back.

In the end, Salimbeni threw out the priests without getting their blessing for the night, and when he had heard enough sycophantic drivel from the drunken wedding guests, he threw them out as well, together with the musicians. If some people were surprised by their patron’s sudden lack of generosity, they all understood his reason for ending the party-she sat in the corner, more asleep than awake, but even in her state of disarray was far too lovely to be left alone much longer.

While Salimbeni was busy taking leave of them all and receiving their good wishes, Giulietta saw her chance to grab a knife from the banquet table and conceal it beneath her clothes. She had been eyeing that particular weapon all night, and had seen it capture the light from the candles as the servants had used it to cut meat for the guests. Even before she held it in her hand, she had already begun to plan how she would use it to carve her loathsome groom. She knew from Giannozza’s letters that-this being her wedding night-there would be a point where Salimbeni would come to her, undressed and with thoughts for everything but fighting, and she knew that this would have to be the moment when she struck.

She could hardly wait to do him such mortal harm that the bed would be covered in his blood rather than hers. But most important, she longed to drink in his reaction to his own mutilation before she plunged the blade right into his demonic heart.

After that, her plans were less defined. Because she had had no communication with Friar Lorenzo since the night after the Palio-and had found no other sympathetic ear in his absence-she knew that, in all likelihood, Romeo’s body was still lying unburied at the Tolomei sepulchre. It was conceivable that her aunt, Monna Antonia, had returned to Tebaldo’s grave the next day to pray and light a candle, but Giulietta rather suspected that, if her aunt had actually stumbled upon Romeo’s body, she-and the rest of Siena-would have heard about it, or, even more likely, witnessed the grieving mother dragging the body of her son’s presumed murderer through the streets by the heels, strapped to her carriage.

WHEN SALIMBENI JOINED Giulietta in the candlelit wedding chamber, she had barely finished her prayers, and had not yet found a suitable place to hide the knife. Turning to face the intruder, she was shocked to see him wearing little more than a tunic; the sight of him holding a weapon would have been less unsettling than that of his naked arms and legs.

“I believe it is custom,” she said, her voice shaking, “to allow your wife time to prepare herself-”

“Oh, I think you are quite ready!” Salimbeni closed the door and walked right up to her, taking her by the chin. He smiled. “No matter how long you make me wait, I will never be the man you want.”

Giulietta swallowed hard, nauseated by his touch and smell. “But you are my husband-” she began meekly.

“Am I now?” He looked amused, head to one side. “Then why do you not greet me more heartily, my love? Why these cold eyes?”

“I-” She struggled to get the words out. “I am not yet used to your presence.”

“You disappoint me,” he said, smiling obscurely. “They told me you would have more spirit than this.” He shook his head, feigning exasperation. “I am beginning to think you could grow to like me.”

When she did not respond, he ran a hand down to challenge the neckline of her wedding gown, seeking access to her bosom. Giulietta gasped when she felt his greedy fingers, and for a moment quite forgot her cunning plan of letting him believe he had conquered her.

“How dare you touch me, you stinking goat!” she hissed, working to pry his hands off her body. “God will not let you touch me!”

Salimbeni laughed delightedly at her sudden resistance and stuck a claw in her hair to hold her still while he kissed her. Only when she gagged with revulsion did he let go of her mouth and say, his sour breath warm against her face, “I will tell you a secret. Old God likes to watch.” With that he picked her up only to throw her down again on top of the bed. “Why else would he create such a body as yours, but leave it for me to enjoy?”

As soon as he let go of her to undo the belt around his tunic, Giulietta tried to crawl away. Unfortunately, when he pulled her back by the ankles, the knife became perfectly visible underneath her skirts, strapped to her thigh. The mere sight of it made its intended victim burst out laughing.

“A concealed weapon!” he exclaimed, pulling it free and admiring its flawless blade. “You already know how to please me.”

“You gutter pig!” Giulietta tried to take it from him and nearly cut herself. “It is mine!”

“Indeed?” He looked at her distorted face, his amusement growing. “Then go get it!” One quick throw later, the knife sat quivering in a wooden beam far out of reach, and when Giulietta tried to kick him in frustration, he pushed her right back down and pinned her against the cencio, easily evading her attempts at scratching him and spitting in his face. “Now, then,” he said, taunting her with false tenderness, “what other surprises do you have for me tonight, my dearest?”

“A curse!” she sneered, struggling to get her arms free. “A curse on everything you hold dear! You killed my parents, and you killed Romeo. You will burn in Hell all right, and I will shit on your grave!”

As she lay there helplessly, her weapon lost, looking up into the triumphant face of the man who ought, by now, to have been prostrate in a pool of blood, dismembered if not dead, Giulietta should have been despairing. And for a few ghastly moments, she was.

But then something happened. At first it was little more than a sudden warmth, penetrating her whole body from the bed below. It was a curious, prickling heat, as if she were lying on a skillet over a slow fire, and when the sensation deepened, it made her burst out laughing. For she suddenly understood that what she felt was a moment of religious ecstasy, and that the Virgin Mary was working a divine wonder through the cencio on which she was lying.

To Salimbeni, Giulietta’s maniacal laughter was far more unsettling than any insult or weapon she could possibly have hurled at him, and he slapped her across the face once, twice, even thrice, without accomplishing anything but to boost her mad amusement. Desperate to shut her up, he started tearing at the silk covering her bosom, but in his agitation was unable to solve the mystery of her apparel. Cursing the Tolomei tailors for the strength of their thread, he turned instead to her skirts, rifling through their intricate layers in search of a less fortified access point.

Giulietta did not even struggle. She just lay there, still chuckling, while Salimbeni made himself ridiculous. For she knew, with a certainty that could only come from Heaven itself, that he could not harm her tonight. No matter how determined he was to put her in her place, the Virgin Mary was by her side, sword drawn, to bar his invasion and protect the holy cencio from an act of barbarous sacrilege.

Chuckling again, she looked at her assailant with eyes full of jubilation. “Did you not hear me?” she asked, simply. “You are cursed. Can you not feel it?”

THE PEOPLE OF SIENA knew very well that gossip is either a plague or an avenger, depending on whether you yourself are the victim. It is cunning, tenacious, and fatal; once you have been marked, it will stop at nothing to bring you down. If it cannot corner you in its present form, it will alter slightly and leap on you from aloft or below; it does not matter how far you run, or how long you crouch in silence: It will find you.

Maestro Ambrogio first heard the rumor at the butcher’s. Later that day, he heard it whispered at the baker’s. And by the time he returned home with his groceries, he knew enough to feel a need to act.

Putting aside his basket of food-all thoughts of dinner gone-he went straight into the back room of his workshop to retrieve the portrait of Giulietta Tolomei and put it back on the easel. For he had never completely finished it. Now he finally knew what she must hold in her piously folded hands; not a rosary, not a crucifix, but a five-petal rose, the rosa mistica. An ancient symbol for the Virgin Mary, this flower was thought to express the mystery of her virginity as well as her own immaculate conception, and in Maestro Ambrogio’s mind there existed no more appropriate emblem of Heaven’s patronage of innocence.

The troublesome task for the painter was always to represent this intriguing plant in a way that steered men’s thoughts towards religious doctrine, rather than distracting them with the alluring, organic symmetry of its petals. It was a challenge the Maestro embraced wholeheartedly, and as he began mixing his colors to produce the perfect shades of red, he did his best to purge his mind of anything but botany.

But he could not. The rumors he had heard around town were too marvelous-too welcome-for him not to enjoy them a little further. For it was said that on the very eve of Salimbeni’s wedding to Giulietta Tolomei, Nemesis had paid a timely visit to the bridal chamber and had stopped, most mercifully, an act of unspeakable cruelty.

Some called it magic, others called it human nature or simple logic; whatever the cause, however, they all agreed on the effect: The groom had been unable to consummate the marriage.

The proofs of this remarkable situation, Maestro Ambrogio had been given to understand, were abundant. One had to do with Salimbeni’s movements, and it went like this: A mature man marries a lovely young girl and crowns their nuptials by joining her in the marriage bed. After three days he leaves the house and seeks a lady of the night, yet is unable to benefit from her services. When that lady kindly offers him an assortment of potions and powders, he cries out furiously that he has already tried them all, and that they are nothing but humbug. What could be concluded but that he had spent his nuptial night incapacitated, and that not even a consultation with a specialist had produced a cure?

Another proof of this presumed state of affairs came from a far more trustworthy quarter, for it had originated in Salimbeni’s own household. For as long as anyone cared to remember, it had been a tradition in that family to scrutinize the bedsheet after every wedding night to ensure that the bride had been a virgin. If there was no blood on the sheet, the girl would be returned to her parents in disgrace, and the Salimbenis would add yet another name to their long list of enemies.

On the morning after Salimbeni’s own wedding, however, no such sheet was displayed, nor was Romeo’s cencio waved around in triumph. The only one who knew of its fate was the servant who was ordered to deliver it in a box to Messer Tolomei that same afternoon, apologizing for its unjustified removal from Tebaldo’s corpse. And when finally, several days after the wedding, a piece of bloodstained linen was handed over to the chambermaid, who gave it to the housekeeper, who promptly gave it to the oldest grandmother of the house… then that old grandmother instantly dismissed it as a falsification.

The purity of a bride was so great a question of honor that it sometimes necessitated great deception, and so, all over town, grandmother was pitted against grandmother in developing and detecting the most convincing concoctions that could quickly be dabbed onto a nuptial sheet for lack of the real thing. Blood itself was not enough; it had to be mixed with other substances, and every grandmother of every family had her own secret recipe as well as a method of detection. Like the alchemists of old, these women spoke not in mundane, but in magical terms; to them the eternal challenge was to forge the perfect combination of pleasure and pain, of male and female.

Such a woman, trained and seasoned in all but witchcraft, could never be fooled by Salimbeni’s wedding sheet, which was clearly the work of a man who had never taken a second look at his bride or his bed after their initial skirmish. Even so, nobody dared to bring up the issue with the master himself, for it was already widely known that the problem lay not with his lady, but with him.

COMPLETING THE PORTRAIT of Giulietta Tolomei was not enough. Filled with restless energy, Maestro Ambrogio went to Palazzo Salimbeni a week after the wedding to inform its inhabitants that their frescoes needed inspection and possibly maintenance. No one dared to contradict the famous Maestro, nor did anyone feel a need to consult Salimbeni on the matter, and so, for the next many days, Maestro Ambrogio was free to come and go in the house as he pleased.

His motive, of course, was to catch a glimpse of Giulietta and, if possible, offer her his assistance. With what, exactly, he was not sure, but he knew that he could not be calm until she knew she still had friends left in this world. But no matter how long he waited-climbing around on ladders pretending to find fault with his own work-the young woman never came downstairs. Nor did anyone mention her name. It was almost as if she had ceased to exist.

One evening, when Maestro Ambrogio was stretched at the very top of a tall ladder, inspecting the same coat of arms for the third time and wondering if perhaps he ought to rethink his strategy, he accidentally came to overhear a conversation between Salimbeni and his son, Nino, taking place in the neighboring room. Clearly under the impression that they were alone, the two men had withdrawn into this remote part of the house to discuss an issue that required some discretion; little did they know that, through the gap between a side door and frame, standing very still on his ladder, Maestro Ambrogio could hear every word.

“I want you,” said Salimbeni to his son, “to take Monna Giulietta to Rocca di Tentennano and see to it that she is properly… installed.”

“So soon?” exclaimed the young man. “Do you not think people will talk?”

“People are already talking,” observed Salimbeni, apparently used to having such frank exchanges with his son, “and I do not want everything to come to a boil. Tebaldo… Romeo… all that. It would be good for you to leave town for a while. Until people forget. Too much has happened lately. The mob is stirring. It worries me.”

Nino made a sound that could only be an attempt at laughter. “Perhaps you should go instead of me. A change of air-”

“Quiet!” There was a limit to Salimbeni’s camaraderie. “You will go, and you will bring her with you. Out with her, disobedient baggage! It sickens me to have her in my house. And once you are there, I want you to stay-”

“Stay there?” Nino could think of nothing more odious than a sojourn in the country. “For how long?”

“Until she is pregnant.”

There was an understandable silence, during which Maestro Ambrogio had to cling to the ladder with both hands so as to not lose his balance as he coped with the shocking demand.

“Oh no-” Nino backed away from his father, finding the whole thing absurd. “Not me. Someone else. Anyone.”

His face flushed with rage, Salimbeni walked right up to his son and took him by the collar. “I do not have to tell you what is going on. Our honor is at stake. I would happily do away with her, but she is a Tolomei. So, I will do the second best, and plant her in the country where no one is looking, busy with her children and out of my way.” He finally let go of his son. “People will say I have been merciful.”

“Children?” Nino liked the plan less and less. “For how many years do you want me to sleep with my mother?”

“She is sixteen!” retorted Salimbeni, “and you will do as I say. Before this winter is over, I want everyone in Siena to know that she is pregnant with my child. Preferably a boy.”

“I shall endeavor to give satisfaction,” said Nino, sarcastically.

Seeing that his son was being flippant, Salimbeni held up a warning finger. “But God help you if you let her out of your sight. No one else may touch her but you. I do not want to show off a bastard.”

Nino sighed. “Very well. I will play Paris and take your wife, old man. Oh, wait. She is not actually your wife, is she?”

The slap on the face did not come as a surprise to Nino; he was asking for it. “That’s right,” he said, backing away, “hit me every time I tell the truth, and reward me whenever I do wrong. Just tell me what you want-kill a rival, kill a friend, kill a maidenhead-and I’ll do it. But don’t ask me to respect you afterwards.”

AS MAESTRO AMBROGIO walked back to his workshop later that night, he could not stop thinking of the conversation he had overheard. How could there be such perversity at large in the world, let alone in his own city? And why did no one move to stop it? He suddenly felt old and obsolete, and began to wish he had never gone to Palazzo Salimbeni in the first place and never overheard those wicked plans.

When he arrived at his workshop, he found the blue door unlocked. Hesitating on the threshold, he wondered briefly whether he had forgotten to lock it when he left, but when he could not hear Dante barking, he began to fear a break-in. “Hello?” He pushed open the door and stepped inside fearfully, confused by the burning lamps. “Who is here?”

Almost immediately, someone pulled him away from the door and closed it firmly behind him. When he turned to face his adversary, however, he saw that it was no malevolent stranger, but Romeo Marescotti. And right next to him stood Friar Lorenzo with Dante in his arms, holding the dog’s mouth closed.

“Heaven be praised!” exclaimed Maestro Ambrogio, looking at the youngsters and marveling at their full beards. “Back from foreign lands at last?”

“Not so foreign,” said Romeo, limping slightly as he walked over to the table to sit down. “We’ve been in a monastery not far from here.”

“Both of you?” asked the painter, dumbfounded.

“Lorenzo,” said Romeo, grimacing as he stretched out his leg, “saved my life. They left me for dead-the Salimbenis, in the cemetery-but he found me and brought me back to life. These past months-I should have been dead, but for him.”

“God,” said Friar Lorenzo, putting down the dog at last, “wanted you to live. And he wanted me to help you.”

“God,” said Romeo, retrieving a bit of his former mischief, “wants a lot from us, doesn’t he?”

“You could not,” said Maestro Ambrogio, looking around for wine and cups, “have returned at a better time. For I have just heard-”

“We have heard it, too,” Romeo cut him off, “but I don’t care. I am not leaving her with him. Lorenzo wanted me to wait until I had recovered fully, but I am not sure I ever will. We have men and horses. Giulietta’s sister, Monna Giannozza, wants her out of Salimbeni’s clutches as much as we do.” The young man leaned back on his chair, slightly out of breath from talking. “Now, you’re the master of frescoes, so you know all the houses. I need you to paint me a map of Palazzo Salimbeni-”

“Pardon me,” said Maestro Ambrogio, shaking his head in bewilderment, “but what exactly is it that you have heard?”

Romeo and Friar Lorenzo glanced at each other.

“I understood,” said the monk, defensively, “that Giulietta was married to Salimbeni some weeks ago. Is this not true?”

“And that is really,” asked the painter, “all you have heard?”

Once again, the young men looked at each other.

“What is it, Maestro?” Romeo frowned in anticipation. “Don’t tell me she is already carrying his child?”

“Heavens, no!” laughed the painter, suddenly giddy. “Quite the opposite.”

Romeo looked at him with narrow eyes. “I am aware that she has known him for three weeks now”-he swallowed with difficulty, as if the words were making him sick-“but I am hoping she has not yet grown too fond of his embraces.”

“My dearest friends,” said Maestro Ambrogio, locating a bottle at last, “brace yourselves for a most unusual story.”