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.
br /> 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?”
&n
bsp; “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.