Tuscan Daughter: A Novel

Part I

1500–1502

I sought to raise myself on wings from here . . .

Defeating, I still live but loveless, lone

—VITTORIA COLONNA, SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ITALIAN POET

Chapter 1

Beatrice stirred and cast an arm across the straw mattress, seeking the warmth of her mother’s body, listening hopefully for her breathing. Predawn, the sky was the color of river silt and the silence was deep; even the rooster slept. She pushed aside the rough linen blanket and pressed a hand to the stone wall, steadying herself against the absence. Only half-awake, she reached for her father’s old quilted jacket and held it close, like a beloved friend.

Three months she had been making the journey to sell olive oil to the artists inside the city. It had become more difficult to gain permission to pass through the tollgates. But, then, measured against what her life had become, that hardly mattered. Her mother had disappeared, traumatized, her face crazed like the night’s constellations. Her father—she would not think of it.

Alone, moving stiffly, Beatrice used her hips to guide the wooden cart down the dirt road, out of the tiny village of Settignano. One of the wheels wobbled, threatening to come off. There were no florins to pay an ironsmith. If she failed to sell her olive oil she would starve, and if she starved she would die. She pinched her thigh hard, giving herself a proper bruise for the self-pitying thought.

Kicking the wheel back onto its wooden axle with a naked foot, she walked on, imagining her feet to be padded like an animal’s, her toes protected by bristled hair. The idea of loping through her village as a she-wolf buoyed her, and she started to trot down the hill.

The road leading to Florence had been pounded flat by heavy wagons pulled by men and teams of white oxen. The stoneworkers traveled from the local quarries, their backs bowed like willow sticks, hauling the pietra serena because the rich favored the calming gray-blue colors. "Serena," the cutters would joke about the name, a trace of bitterness lacing their voices, their bodies crippled by carrying the stone to the city so that the wealthy could raise monuments to God, to the Virgin Mary and to themselves.

* * *

A white cat, thin as a shadow, angled beside her and mewled loudly. Beatrice set down her cart and stroked its scrawny head, allowing the animal to crawl inside her wool gambeson. Before, even on hot days, her father wore the jacket like a noble soldier preparing for battle, though he was only a gentle philosopher and keeper of a few olive trees. Now he was buried deep in the ground. She held the warm cat and thought of a story she’d heard about prisoners in dungeons who befriended rats to keep from going mad. Being in prison might not be so bad if you were there with your mamma e papà and there was a portal to look out at the world. But her kin were gone, and without them, the joy in her land had run dry.

The air tasted of winter cold descending from the Apennines, and Beatrice knew there was more of that to come. She uncorked her deerskin and sipped wine. Her supply of olive oil was nearly exhausted. Only days ago, she had tenderly raked and sorted the olives from her modest family grove to have them inspected by the owner of the local olive mill. It was her first time representing the family, and she’d felt nervous and excited. He motioned her to the private yard behind the giant granite crushers. You have money to pay? Sweat clung to her skin from running her cart, heavy with her harvest, down the road to the mill. She had removed every twig and all the slender silver leaves from her autumnal haul and was bursting with pride at its glistening freshness. Now she was standing in olive muck up to her ankles.

No money, no olive oil, warned the miller, his mouth twitching. He looked her over as if seeing her for the first time.

I have no coins, but I can trade with you.

She watched his blackened fingers stretching and curling. They reminded her of short, pudgy eels.

"I have a pillow stitched with tombolo lace by my mother, she said, stepping toward him, pleading her case. My father brought our olives to you over many years."

He leered at her. "Orphaned wench. Tombolo does not interest me." His fingers were suddenly upon her. He gripped her neck and clawed at her tunic. She kicked him hard between the legs and ran for it, dumping most of the olives from her cart by the time she had reached the safety of the road.

The attack had terrified her. Surely she had done something to provoke his rage? Her parents had never raised a hand against her, so it was difficult to know how to gauge the customs of other people. Such an ugly man, with eels for fingers. She remembered how her father had taught her to hurl stones at the black night whenever she fell into a sour mood. To the moon! he had laughed, "La luna!" That was a game they had played together. She used to believe in its magic, but now she wasn’t so sure.

She pushed her cart toward Florence, her feet now leaden and unsteady, her imaginary friend, the she-wolf, lying low in a tangle of juniper bush.

The sky was lightening to the gray of Florentine wool. She took two dirty lengths of linen from her satchel, wound them tightly around both hands, picked up the handles again and rolled forward, the wheels lurching down a steep pitch gnarled by tree roots and rocks heaved up from the earth. Her thighs burned with the effort and she felt a crack on her heel run with fresh blood. Her earthenware jars rattled against each other like broken bones.

The road dipped then flattened, and she saw the massive outline of the brick wall that protected Florence from peasants, the popolo minuto, like her. She watched as the outsiders pushed frantically toward the wall, three stories tall—villagers and shanty dwellers coming from all directions, a river of snakes with dull eyes and oily backs. Beatrice set the cart down and knotted her black hair tightly at the back of her head, the better to go anonymously into the crowd and avoid the unwanted attention of the guards at the city gates.

She pulled her hood down low and shifted her mantle so that her breasts were camouflaged, becoming less girl, more boy. Before the troubles, she was adored and coddled, presented as a jewel by her parents whenever they walked through the village. No longer. Now, alone, she carried a blade and kept her eyes down.

She pressed both hands together in a rough prayer to make ready for the humiliating inspection. A group of women hauling baskets of fresh-cut oak on their heads shouldered their way past as the chief sentry called out to open the thick wooden doors. Vendors scrabbled like cockroaches, using their carts and shovels to push their way forward toward the tollgates, ready to pay their meager coins to gain access to the great golden city.

Chapter 2

Outside the city walls, chaos all around, Beatrice hesitated to push into the massive crowd and retreated inside herself. Her hands clung to the collar of her father’s jacket and she bent an ear, the better to hear his counsel.

Do not hesitate. Be a Roman warrior. The goddess Diana. Walk without fear through each day. Head up, stand tall like the cypress.

She smiled at his love of the ancients, the way his counsel shimmered like a slab of Carrara marble.

But I am alone now, and these people—

He interrupted her thoughts: Their suffering has corrupted their peaceful nature. You will discover those you can trust. Watch for them, reach out in kindness.

She gripped the handles of her cart and did not move, the better to hold on to his presence. He had been taken from her when all was right in the world. She knew she should not think of it, but it was difficult to resist going to that place of dark emotion. One year ago, when the sun was falling and pink and orange were stretched like yarn on a loom, the hens had set to shrieking in their enclosure and her father had walked off across the flats to scare off the fox that might be harassing them. Beatrice was at home, melting beeswax over a slow fire, preparing the slender tallows that the priest preferred for his church altar. Her mother bent over a piece of tombolo, her hands flying over wooden spools of thread, braiding lace to edge pillowcases for rich clients in the city.

It seemed, like so many of the evenings the family spent together, as if time was lifted up like an offering and held in a state of suspension. The wax melted slowly, the thread was braided, the sun went down, the birds shrieked, her father walked and then ran toward the henhouse. The wooden bobbins held the thread, the wax turned liquid, and a single lacy curve emerged on the tombolo pillow. From the inside of their little stone home, all was well. Still was the night. It seemed as sweet as the sweat rising on Beatrice’s cheekbones and settling along her upper lip. Her mother’s auburn hair swirled down her back, her eyes fixed on her work. The sweet suspension of time unraveled from the spool and floated in the air like gossamer wings. To interrupt it would be to deny a family’s right to love, and so the mother and daughter continued at their work, lulled by the feeling, sated by the glorious Tuscan day, never noticing how long the man had been gone.

The war between Pisa and Florence had been a simmering feud where men fought each other among the cypresses and along the edges of rivers. Bands of Pisans knew enough to stay away from the heavily guarded battalion of Florence, but they enjoyed their share of violence in the villages that lay exposed and unprotected outside the city. Killing a hen was one way to lure an enemy outside. They waited patiently while Beatrice’s father approached with anxious footsteps. To lose a hen to a fox represented half a month’s wages, and so he went blindly toward the screams of his birds and the darkening olive groves.

* * *

The Tuscan earth was golden and fertile, without the weight of the clay soil to the south. But morning dawned and the land smelled of decay. There was a scent of poison in the air, the blood of her father, which the Pisans had smeared onto the hen hutch. Beatrice looked to the place where she had instinctively dragged the corpse, away from the cruel death by sticks and clubs, to lay him down on the earth in the benevolent shadow of the old olive tree. Her mind had gone numb. It was as if her eyes no longer saw in color, only black and white.

Now she needed to transport her father to the church, where the priest would clean the dead man’s face with holy water, bless the body with frankincense oil, then bury him at the village cemetery. Without these rituals, her father would be in danger of wandering with evil spirits in the underworld.

In the distance, she could see a figure traveling toward her. He seemed to be walking quickly, without a hat, though the morning sun was fierce. Not the priest—he had already been to pray with the girl. While she stood by, he had closed her father’s eyes with patient fingers, set two small stones over the eyes. Some neighbors had also come by, trekking from their homes in the village to heap bouquets of lavender and small sacks of their most cherished Etruscan grains at the front door to sustain the family in the coming months.

She was curious about who was fast approaching. Wary, she picked up one of the clubs the attackers had left behind. She watched as the figure cut down a path to walk alongside the creek before hiking up to where her father lay. Not an enemy. A young man with a serious face, a brow that looked permanently furrowed. She watched him kneel beside the body and bow his head in prayer.

She set down the club and gripped the handles of her family’s wobbly wooden cart. The land was thirsty for rain, and puffs of dirt lifted as she walked toward the stranger, pushing the cart next to her father’s body and keeping it between them like a rough battering ram. I do not know you, she said listlessly, looking down on the bent figure. Who are your people? She listened to her voice and did not recognize it. She had taken on the sound of her mother, who was inside, curled on the straw mattress, unable to scream or even cry.

He did not speak at first but stood and offered a curt bow. His mouth was set in a straight line, and his eyes flicked gently to her. My family has a farm on the other side of this grove. Di Buonarroti.

She shook her head.

Mostly we live in Florence, he added, by way of explanation.

I live here, she said. And some of us are dying here.

He touched his right hand to his chest. I’m sorry for your loss. She could tell he was uncomfortable, offering words he had heard others recite, but he stood his ground. These troubles over the land will not soon be over. He hesitated, then asked, Your mother?

She is not able to do this.

I see that your spirit is strong.

Beatrice looked at his leather boots, broken and wrinkled. His hands were caked with white dust. You are a stonemason?

I am a sculptor. Though I was taught how to work with stone here in Settignano.

She looked past him to the olive groves, listening to the gentle rustling of the silver-sylvan leaves, cooling her anger and the desire to seek revenge.

"Scultore," she said, clicking her tongue to express approval. The word had never been spoken to her before, and she chiseled its syllables with her tongue. The sculptures she had seen in Florence—mythical heroes, lions, angels and saints—transformed stone into things that could live alongside people. Somebody had made them, somebody like this man who stood before her. She wondered if he also drew from his imagination, as she liked to do. The question lay at the back of her mind, though she dared not ask it.

My name is Michelangelo. Michelangelo di Buonarroti. You must visit me someday at my studio in Florence. If there is anything you need.

In the distance, the city’s cathedral pushed its orange dome up powerfully, piercing the sky. She wondered how people could live confined to Florence. It seemed a punishment, even if a building like the Duomo offered a better relationship with God. As if that could be true.

You are careless with your words, she said, curling her lip, pricked by rage. I have no business in the city. You will not see me there. She said these words even as she rounded the cart and lifted her father’s arms. Michelangelo quickly bent to hoist the dead man’s legs. This artist, full of big-city presumptions, could not know the depths of her sorrow. Yet here he was, doing the unthinkable with her.

They heaved the body into the cart. Seeing her father crumple like a doll against the raw wooden boards, Beatrice let out a strangled cry. Weeping, she held her arms out wide and tipped forward toward him. "Papà, papà!" She was only thirteen. To live without her father was unthinkable.

Without hesitating, Michelangelo grabbed her and held her roughly in his arms. You will see your father again, God willing, he said. His face seemed to be lifted to the sky. Pray for him, and he will watch over you from Heaven.

He carried her back to the stone hut and set her down on the sacks of grain. She hid her face in her cloak, ashamed of her tears.

You are young. Tomorrow will be easier.

He straightened and gripped her hands tightly in his. Please come to see me in the city, he said, repeating the offer, taking care to speak with kindness. If he felt any awkwardness at their sudden intimacy, he did not show it. Can I help you push the cart to the church?

She hesitated and looked at the cloudless sky. Once, blue had been her favorite, the color of horizons and longing. Now its serenity, like her family, had splintered into shards of dispossession. From that day on, Beatrice would remember blue as the color of solitude.

We will manage on our own, she said, though she doubted her mother would be able to help.

She watched him walk with a driven, athletic gait to the road, leaving her alone by the stoop of her hut. Michelangelo, sculptor, with a family farm in the olive grove beyond. He had left her with something: an imprint of stone dust on her hands. She rubbed her fingers together, testing the grit. Maybe he was honorable. Maybe he was a lie.

* * *

A woman cradling a freshly butchered leg of venison in her arms pushed past Beatrice, cursing her for standing in the way, wrenching her out of the memory. The smell of blood leapt from the deer to cling like sickness to the girl’s mouth. She surveyed the crowd, seeking out the faces of the women, examining their figures, their shapes, the way they held themselves. Trembling, she willed her mother to step forward and show herself. She had disappeared and left Beatrice alone, but surely her mamma had meant no harm; she had been terribly delayed, that was all.

The crowd surged around her and her head filled with the noise of chaos. Next to her, gray rabbits had been upturned in their wooden cages, and chickens were clawing like madness to escape their woven bags. Clapping her hands against her ears, Beatrice looked to the gates and wanted desperately to be inside the city, where surely her mother would be waiting for her.

Chapter 3

Step aside, ugly ones." A man with a woolen cap and dull gray eyes growled his command and shoved his cart fiercely into the crowd. Beatrice yanked her cart to one side to stay clear. She needed to sell the olive oil in her earthenware jars or go hungry another day. The priest in her village had advised her to begin trading in the city, sweeping the church steps with swift, angry movements while Beatrice stood with her head bowed, her stomach clenched with hunger.

An orphan like you—

Father, I am no orphan, she had said flatly. I am looking for my mother. She is lost, is all.

She remembered how her mother had rocked herself in a corner for days, sobbing and cursing the murderers of her husband.

Mamma, can I send for somebody? The healer, the priest?

She watched, helpless, as her mother paced their little manor like a caged ferret. Language had left her. She seemed incapable of forming words. With the passing of every day, her despair thickened into a fetid soup that no salve or herbal infusion could remedy.

It was when her mother started pricking her arms with her sewing needle that Beatrice finally reacted. I cannot bear this anymore, she said. You must go outside, seek counsel with the stars. She grabbed her mother by the hand and led her outside. She pushed her away from the door and watched her disappear into their olive grove, caressing every tree with her hands and her mouth. I do not recognize her. This woman. These were Beatrice’s last thoughts as she closed the door on her mother.

Your mother has fled, said the priest, averting his eyes from the girl. He was a stout man with a face that reminded Beatrice of a squash gone bad. Like so many others.

What do you mean, Father?

Women, he said, shaking his head. They leave the village to follow the Devil.

Beatrice bristled. My mother is kind and generous in every way. She loved my father—

Love? He looked at her with disdain. Well, then. Your mother will discover many variations of that in the city.

What the priest meant by that she had no idea. Love was a word rarely spoken aloud in her home, but Beatrice knew the emotion by touch and sound, the way her family greeted each other in the morning with gentle kisses on cheeks and, after sundown, the way her parents pulled the coarse blankets tenderly over her while saying a prayer and raising their eyes to the timbers. She would be astonished to discover that love could exist in the deafening, anonymous city, but the priest had provoked her to seek an answer.

And so Beatrice had hatched a plan to travel into the city, to recover her mother and bring her home. She would sell olive oil to make some quattrini, enough to survive, until her mother could return and life could be as it was. Head down, wheeling her broken cart to artists who would tolerate a barefoot girl in the dirt lanes behind the Duomo. One year ago, her life of hardship had begun.

Four crossbowmen stood guard high on the wall walk that encircled the city like a fortress, dressed in black leather vests with silk sleeves of white and gold. Another four men stood on either side of the monumental arched entrance. They were posted to check and frisk all vendors for weapons before allowing them to pass. They could take liberties, of course; pull anybody young and desirable from the crowd with a shout and a drawn sword, and pin her against one of the massive doors studded with iron nails.

A horse-drawn carriage took the crowd by surprise. Its riggings, oil-slicked and true, allowed the vehicle to glide noiselessly. The driver clicked his tongue at the horses, a black gelding and a silver-gray Andalusian, and the throng parted to make room.

The carriage pulled up next to her and Beatrice touched a hand to the ornate wrought-iron doors. Two men sat slumped against leather seats. One had a face framed by dark curls. The other passenger—his grandfather?—wore a silver-white beard. Bracing herself with both hands, she stood on her toes for a better view. The old man turned his head and Beatrice ducked. There might be a whipping coming her way. Anxious to escape the lash on her back, she rammed her cart forward, and the broken wheel resisted, causing her vehicle to lurch into another, stacked high with oak logs and an exotic caged creature whose feathers were as white as the moon. Beatrice had seen blackbirds, pheasants and guinea hens, but never this kind of fowl.

May I purchase that bird?

It was the old man from the carriage. He was now on foot and standing two carts away. His figure was tall and noble, and Beatrice admired the rose-pink color of his tunic and the summertime green of his velvet cape. It reminded her of cypress trees shooting into the air like arrows of hope.

Market’s not open, said the owner of the bird. She gestured toward the sky, still cast in gray though the horizon was washing up blue. After the sunrise.

With your permission, I’ll take him off your hands.

His voice was soft, so unlike the sharp insults exchanged between those who lived poor and dirty in the hills beyond the city walls. The whiskery woman flapped her arms at him: go away. Her silky creature lifted its feathers and shifted restlessly in a basket that served as a makeshift cage.

Here, said the stranger, smiling kindly. Beatrice watched him press coins into the woman’s hand as the crowd pushed noisily past.

The bird woman quickly slipped the outrageous sum into her apron. Just this once, signore. Seeing that Beatrice was staring, she snapped, Little whore, with eyes big as a cow’s. She tightened the band on her wimple cap. Mind your own affairs.

The old man turned to Beatrice, an arm wrapped around the birdcage. "Buon giorno," he said, bowing slightly.

My lord, she said, bowing low, amazed by the short cut of his cape and the pink hose on display above his boots.

What elixirs might be on offer today? He reached into her cart and uncorked one of the clay carafes. Olive oil, he said, breathing deeply.

Beatrice stared at the man, blank-faced, astonished by his brazen sampling of her wares.

Reminds me of lying in a field of fresh-cut hay. He stepped aside to let a man hauling a pig on a rope go by. Which I like to do far too often, according to my taskmasters.

A woman with a basket of bread balanced on her head moved next to them. He handed Beatrice the birdcage and reached into the baker’s basket, handing her a coin for a round of Tuscan bread sprinkled with rosemary and oregano. He drizzled it with some of Beatrice’s olive oil and stuffed it into his mouth. My God, he said, raising a hand dramatically in the air. It’s good to be home.

He handed Beatrice a coin and reclaimed his bird. He opened the cage and held the creature against his chest. "Vieni, see how beautiful." The bird opened its curved black beak and gnawed on the man’s fingers. Beatrice was unsure if he was speaking to her or the creature. His white hair and beard made him look as old as some of the monks in the city, but his eyes had a youthful radiance, and he smelled of cinnamon and rosemary. Country folk continued to move past them, cursing at the roadblock. She reached out to touch the bird.

You sell in the marketplace? he asked.

No, she said, shaking her head, amazed by the way her hand disappeared into the depth of the bird’s feathers. She could not afford to pay the extra coins to sell in the main marketplace. To men working in the lane behind the Duomo. Goldsmiths, leatherworkers, painters, sculptors.

The artists of Florence, said the man.

Beatrice shrugged. The studios she visited with her cart belonged to men named Lippi, Granacci. They made altar paintings adorned with gold leaf, mahogany chairs inlaid with ivory, naked bodies from slabs of Carrara marble. But there was never time for her to admire what they were making. That would show herself to be a slovenly villager. More than that, it might betray her interest in making art herself, something girls had no business attempting. I should go now, she said.

This beautiful parrot does not belong in a cage, or in Tuscany, he replied, as if she had not spoken. He buried his face in the downy feathers and stroked the bird. Then, without warning, he lifted it high in the air and opened his hands. The parrot screeched and took flight.

He’s gone! Beatrice watched the sky, her heart lifted with joy even as she felt the dread of a crime having been committed. The man had freed the most beautiful bird, and it had flown like an angel into the heavens.

"Amore, Master, please, are you finished?" The handsome young man was calling from the carriage.

Beatrice impulsively pressed a carafe of olive oil toward the man called Master. His face radiated with peace. For you, she said, then hoisted her cart handles. Somebody unseen pummeled Beatrice in the backside. She held tight to her cart, refusing to cede ground. How long have you been away?

More years than you are old.

I am fourteen, signore.

He nodded.

With your permission, signore, may I bring you more olive oil?

You speak like a true Florentine merchant. There was the shriek of roosters and donkeys passing by. She stepped closer so as to catch his words. . . . at the monastery? he said. Then he retreated to the carriage. Santissima Annunziata, he called over his shoulder.

I know it, she said. She knew all of the streets in Florence. Near to San Marco.

The carriage driver whistled sharply and guided the horses into the mayhem. Beatrice pushed forward on foot. At the tollgate, she bent her head low and extended her coin to a guard.

Show your face. He ripped the hood from her head.

Sweat prickled on the small of her back. She bit in her lips, making them thin like a boy’s. The morning has gold in its mouth, she said, appalled by his smell and his rotten, broken teeth. Can I pass? Here is my quattrino.

One of the crossbowmen on the wall shouted angrily down to the guard. It felt to Beatrice like all eyes were on her.

Face down! the guard ordered.

She braced herself for what was to come. It always felt like an uncivil war between the peasants and the guards. Guard, may I pass? she said.

What’s this? The village dog can speak?

The other guards barked in excitement, bouncing in their boots, enjoying the humiliation. Those next in line went silent.

Signore, gallant soldier of the state, said the master, suddenly there at her side. She felt his hand on her back, sweeping her away from the nearest guard.

Another soldier elbowed his way forward and brayed loudly, Nearly winter, but here stands somebody in summertime green. His arms were heavily muscled, and his uniform was impeccable, the heraldic red lily stitched brightly on his silk vest. He shook his head in disgust at the man’s pink hose and flicked the cape open with his dagger, revealing its sapphire silk lining.

It was a present from Duke Sforza of Milan. The man looked at the guard with steady eyes.

A likely story, said the guard, enjoying the mockery, from an old lecher. Laughter all around, even from those who stood in line, craning for a better look at the interrogation of the man in extravagant dress defending a peasant girl.

"Indeed, signore, you are to be commended for your leaden mind.