“Well,” I said, somewhat weirded out, “are you gonna be okay?”
“Me? Oh! Yes, thank you. But … you must come and see me. I want to show you something. Do you know my workshop? It is in Via Santa Caterina. The blue door. You don’t have to knock, just come in.”
Only then did it occur to me that he had me pegged for a tourist and wanted to sell some souvenirs. Yeah right, buddy, I thought, I’ll get right on that.
WHEN I CALLED UMBERTO later that night, he was deeply disturbed by my new insights into my parents’ deaths. “But are you sure?” he kept saying, “are you sure this is true?” I told him that I was. Not only did everything point to the fact that there had been dark forces at play twenty years ago, but as far as I could see, those forces might still be lingering and on the prowl.
“Are you sure he was following you?” Umberto objected. “Maybe—”
“Umberto,” I interrupted him, “he was wearing a tracksuit.”
We both knew that in Umberto’s universe only a black-hearted villain would walk down a fashionable street dressed in sportswear.
“Well,” said Umberto, “maybe he just wanted to pick your pocket. He saw you leaving the bank, and he figured you had taken out money—”
“Yes, maybe. I sure don’t see why someone would steal this box. I can’t find anything in it to do with Juliet’s Eyes—”
“Juliet’s Eyes?”
“Yeah, that’s what Peppo said.” I sighed and threw myself down on the bed. “Apparently, that’s the treasure. But if you ask me, I think it’s all a big scam. I think Mom and Aunt Rose are sitting up in heaven, having a really good laugh right now. Anyway … what are you up to?”
We talked for at least another five minutes before I discovered that Umberto was no longer in Aunt Rose’s house, but at a hotel in New York, looking for work, whatever that meant. I had a hard time imagining him waiting tables in Manhattan, grating Parmesan cheese over other people’s pasta. He probably shared my sentiments, for he sounded tired and out of spirits, and I wanted so much to be able to tell him that I was on track to land a major fortune. But we both knew that, despite recovering my mother’s box, I had barely figured out where to start.
[ II.III ]
Death that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty
Siena, A.D. 1340
…
THE LETHAL STRIKE NEVER CAME.
Instead, Friar Lorenzo—still kneeling in prayer before the brigand—heard a brief, frightful wheeze, followed by a tremor that rocked the whole cart, and the sound of a body tumbling to the ground. And then … silence. A brief glance with a half-open eye confirmed that, indeed, his intended killer was no longer looming over him, sword drawn, and Friar Lorenzo stretched nervously to see where the villain had disappeared so suddenly.
There he lay, broken and bloody on the bank of the ditch, the man who had—moments ago—been the cocksure captain of a band of highwaymen. How frail and human he looked now, thought Friar Lorenzo, with the point of a knife protruding from his chest, and with blood trickling from his demonic mouth and into an ear that had heard many sobbing prayers but never taken pity on a single one.
“Heavenly Mother!” The monk uplifted his folded hands to the sky above. “Thank you, O sacred Virgin, for saving your humble servant!”
“You are welcome, Friar, but I am no virgin.”
Hearing the ghostly voice and realizing that the speaker was very near and rather dreadful-looking with plumed helmet, breastplate, and lance in hand, Friar Lorenzo sprang to his feet.
“Noble Saint Michael!” he cried, at once exalted and terrified. “You have saved my life! That man, there, that rascal, was just about to kill me!”
Saint Michael raised his visor to reveal a youthful face. “Yes,” he said, his voice human now, “I had surmised as much. But I must add to your disappointment: I am no saint either.”
“Whatever your description, noblest knight,” exclaimed Friar Lorenzo, “your advent is in truth a miracle, and I am confident that the holy Virgin will reward such kind actions in Heaven!”
“I thank you, Friar,” replied the knight, his eyes full of mischief, “but when you talk to her next, could you tell her that I will happily settle for a reward here on earth. Another horse, perhaps? For this one is sure to land me with the pig at the Palio.”
Friar Lorenzo blinked once, maybe twice, as he began to realize that his savior had spoken the truth; he was indeed no saint. And judging by the way the young man had spoken of the Virgin Mary—with impertinent familiarity—he was certainly no pious soul either.
There was no mistaking the faint creaking of the coffin lid as its tenant tried to steal a glance at her bold savior, and Friar Lorenzo quickly sat down on top of it to hold it closed, his gut telling him that here were two young people who must never know each other. “Ahem,” he said, determined to be polite, “whereabouts is your battle, noble knight? Or are you off to defend the Holy Land?”
The other looked incredulous. “Where are you from, funny friar? Surely a man so connected to God knows that the time of crusades has passed.” He threw out his arm in the direction of Siena. “These hills, those towers … this is my Holy Land.”
“Then I am truly glad,” said Friar Lorenzo hastily, “that I have not come hither with evil intent!”
The knight was not convinced. “May I ask,” he said, squinting, “what errand you have in Siena, Friar? And what do you have in that coffin?”
“Nothing!”
“Nothing?” The other glanced at the dead body on the ground. “It is very unlike the Salimbenis to bleed for nothing. Surely you have something desirable with you?”
“Not at all!” insisted Friar Lorenzo, still too shaken to put faith in yet another stranger with demonstrated killing skills. “In this coffin lies one of my poor brothers, grotesquely disfigured by a fall from our windy bell tower three days ago. I must deliver him to Messer—um … to his family in Siena this very evening.”
Much to Friar Lorenzo’s relief, the expression on the other’s face now changed from rising hostility into compassion, and he asked no more about the coffin. Instead, he turned his head and looked impatiently down the road. Following his gaze, Friar Lorenzo saw nothing but the setting sun, but the sight reminded him that it was thanks to this young man, heathen or no, that he was able to enjoy the rest of this evening and, God willing, many more like it.
“Cousins!” bellowed his savior. “Our trial run has been delayed by this unfortunate friar!”
Only now did Friar Lorenzo see five other horsemen coming right out of the sun, and as they came closer, he began to recognize that he was dealing with a handful of young men involved in some manner of sport. None of the others wore armor, but one of them—a mere boy—held a large hourglass. When the child caught sight of the dead body in the ditch, the device slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground, breaking the glass in half.
“Now here is an evil omen for our race, little cousin,” said the knight to the boy, “but maybe our holy friend here can undo it with a prayer or two. What do you say, Friar, do you have a benediction for my horse?”
Friar Lorenzo glared at his savior, thinking he was the victim of a jest. But the other seemed perfectly sincere as he sat there on the mount as comfortably as other men would sit on a chair in their own home. Seeing the monk’s furrowed brow, however, the young man smiled and said, “Ah, never mind. No benediction will help this jade anyway. But tell me, before we part, whether I have saved a friend or a foe?”
“Noblest master!” Shocked that he had—for a moment—been tempted to think ill of the man whom God had dispatched to save his life, Friar Lorenzo sprang to his feet and clasped his heart in submission. “I owe you my life! How could I be anything but your devoted subject forever?”
“Fine words! But where lies your allegiance?”
“My allegiance?” Friar Lorenzo looked from one to the other, begging for a clue.
br />
“Yes,” urged the boy who had dropped the hourglass, “who do you root for in the Palio?”
Six pairs of eyes narrowed as Friar Lorenzo scrambled to compose an answer, his gaze jumping from the golden beak on the knight’s plumed helmet to the black wings on the banner tied to his lance and further on to the giant eagle spread over his breastplate.
“But of course,” said Friar Lorenzo hastily, “I root for … the Eagle? Yes! The great Eagle … the king of the sky!”
To his relief, the answer was received with cheers.
“Then you are truly a friend,” concluded the knight, “and I am happy that I killed him and not you. Come, we will take you into town. The Camollia Gate does not allow carts after sunset, so we must hurry.”
“Your kindness,” said Friar Lorenzo, “humbles me. I beg you to tell me your name that I may bless you in all my prayers from now and forever?”
The beaked helmet dipped briefly in a cordial nod.
“I am the Eagle. Men call me Romeo Marescotti.”
“Marescotti is your mortal name?”
“What’s in a name? The Eagle lives forever.”
“Only Heaven,” said Friar Lorenzo, his natural stinginess briefly eclipsing his gratitude, “can grant eternal life.”
The knight beamed. “Then obviously,” he retorted, mostly for the amusement of his companions, “the Eagle must be the Virgin’s favorite bird!”
BY THE TIME ROMEO and his cousins finally delivered monk and cart to the stated destination inside the city of Siena, dusk had turned darkness, and a wary silence had come over the world. Doors and shutters were now closed and barred to the demons that come out at night, and had it not been for the moon and the occasional passerby carrying a torch, Friar Lorenzo would have long since lost his bearings in the sloping labyrinth of streets.
When Romeo had asked him whom he had come to visit, the monk had lied. He knew all about the bloody feud between the Tolomeis and the Salimbenis, and that it could, in the wrong company, be fatal to admit that he had come to Siena to see the great Messer Tolomei. For all their willingness to help, you never knew how Romeo and his cousins would react—nor what lewd stories they would tell their friends and family—if they knew the truth. And so instead, Friar Lorenzo had told them that his destination was Maestro Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s workshop, since it was the only other name he could think of in the context of Siena.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti was a painter, a true maestro, who was known far and wide for his frescoes and portraits. Friar Lorenzo had never met him in person, but he remembered someone telling him that this great man lived in Siena. It was with some trepidation he had first spoken the name to Romeo, but when the young man did not contradict him, he dared to assume that, in mentioning the artist, he had chosen wisely.
“Well, then,” said Romeo, stopping his horse in the middle of a narrow street, “here we are. It is the blue door.”
Friar Lorenzo looked around, surprised that the famous painter did not live in a more attractive neighborhood. Garbage and filth littered the street all around them, and scrawny cats were eyeing him from doorways and dark corners. “I thank you,” he said, descending from the cart, “for your great help, gentlemen. Heaven will reward you all in due course.”
“Stand aside, monk,” replied Romeo, dismounting, “and let us carry that coffin inside for you.”
“No! Do not touch it!” Friar Lorenzo tried to position himself between Romeo and the coffin. “You have helped me enough already.”
“Nonsense!” Romeo all but pushed the monk aside. “How do you intend to get it into the house without our help?”
“I don’t—God will procure a way! The Maestro will help me—”
“Painters have brains, not muscles. Here—” This time, Romeo did move the other aside, but he did it gently, aware that he was engaging a weaker opponent.
The only one not aware of his own weakness was Friar Lorenzo. “No!” he exclaimed, struggling to assert himself as the sole protector of the coffin. “I beg you—I command you—!”
“You command me?” Romeo looked amused. “Such words do little but rouse my curiosity. I just saved your life, monk. Why can you not stomach my kindness now?”
On the other side of the blue door, inside Maestro Ambrogio’s workshop, the painter was busy doing what he always did this time of day: mixing and testing colors. The night belonged to the bold, to the crazed and to the artist—often one and the same—and it was a blessed time to work, for all his customers were now at home, eating and sleeping as humans do, and would not come knocking until after sunrise.
Joyfully engrossed in his work, Maestro Ambrogio did not notice the noise in the street until his dog, Dante, started growling. Without putting down his mortar, the painter stepped closer to the door and tried to gauge the severity of the argument that was—by the sound of it—taking place on his very doorstep. It put him in mind of the grand death of Julius Caesar, stabbed by a throng of Roman senators and dying very decoratively, scarlet on marble, harmoniously framed by columns. Would that some great Sienese could bring himself to die in a like manner, allowing the Maestro to indulge in the scene on a local wall.
Just then, someone banged on the door, and Dante began barking.
“Shush!” said Ambrogio to the dog, “I advise you to hide, in case it is the horned one trying to get in. I know him a great deal better than you.”
As soon as he opened the door, a whirlwind of agitated voices burst inside and wrapped the Maestro in a heated argument—something to do with a certain object that needed to be carried inside.
“Tell them, my good brother in Christ!” urged a breathless monk. “Tell them we shall deal with this thing alone!”
“What thing?” Maestro Ambrogio wanted to know.
“The coffin,” replied someone else, “with the dead bell ringer! Look!”
“I think you have the wrong house,” said Maestro Ambrogio. “I did not order that.”
“I beg you,” pleaded the monk, “to let us inside. I will explain everything.”
There was nothing else to do but step aside, and so Maestro Ambrogio opened the door wide to allow the young men to carry the coffin into his workshop and put it down in the middle of the floor. It did not surprise him at all to see that young Romeo Marescotti and his cousins were—once again—up to no good; what puzzled the Maestro was the presence of the hand-wringing monk.
“That is the lightest coffin I have ever carried,” observed one of Romeo’s companions. “Your ringer must have been a very slender man, Friar Lorenzo. Make sure to choose a fat one next time that he may stand more firmly in that windy bell tower.”
“We shall!” exclaimed Friar Lorenzo with rude impatience. “And now I thank you, gentlemen, for all your services. Thank you, Messer Romeo, for saving our lives—my life! Here”—he extracted a small, bent coin from somewhere underneath his cowl—“a centesimo for your trouble!”
The coin hung in the air for a while, unclaimed. Eventually, Friar Lorenzo stuffed it back underneath his cowl, his ears glowing like coals in a sudden draft.
“All I ask,” said Romeo, mostly to tease, “is that you show us what is in that coffin. For it is no monk, fat or slender, of that I am sure.”
“No!” Friar Lorenzo’s anxious aspect lapsed into panic. “I cannot allow that! With the Virgin Mary as my witness, I swear to you, every one of you, the coffin must remain closed, or a great disaster will undo us all!”
It struck Maestro Ambrogio that he had never before indulged in the features of a bird. A small sparrow that had fallen out of the nest, its feathers ruffled and its eyes little frightened beads … that was precisely what this young friar looked like as he stood there, cornered by Siena’s most notorious cats.
“Come now, monk,” said Romeo, “I saved your life tonight. Have I not by now earned your confidence?”
“I fear,” said Maestro Ambrogio to Friar Lorenzo, “that you will have to deliver on your threat and let us all be un
done by disaster. Honor demands it.”
Friar Lorenzo shook his head heavily. “Very well, then! I shall open the coffin. But allow me first to explain”—for a moment, his eyes darted to and fro in search of inspiration, then he nodded and said—“you are right, there is no monk in this coffin. But there is someone just as holy. She is the only daughter of my generous patron, and”—he cleared his throat to speak more forcefully—“she died, very tragically, two days ago. He sent me here with her body, to beg you, Maestro, to capture her features in a painting before they are lost forever.”
“Two days?” Maestro Ambrogio was appalled, all business now. “She has been dead two days? My dear friend—” Without waiting for the monk’s approval, he opened the lid of the coffin to assess the damage. But fortunately, the girl inside had not yet been ravished by death. “It seems,” he said, happily surprised, “we still have time. Even so, I must begin right away. Did your patron specify a motif? Usually I do a standard Virgin Mary from the waist up, and in this case I will throw in Babe Jesus for free, since you have come all this way.”
“I … believe I will go with the standard Virgin Mary, then,” said Friar Lorenzo, looking nervously at Romeo, who had knelt down next to the coffin to admire the dead girl, “and our Heavenly Savior, since it is free.”
“Ahimè!” exclaimed Romeo, ignoring the monk’s warning stance. “How can God be so cruel?”
“Stop!” cried Friar Lorenzo, but it was too late; the young man had already touched a hand to the girl’s cheek.
“Such beauty,” he said, his voice tender, “should never die. Even death hates his trade tonight. Look, he has not yet brushed her lips with his purple stain.”
“Careful!” warned Friar Lorenzo, trying to close the lid. “You know not what infection those lips carry!”
“If she were mine,” Romeo went on, blocking the monk’s efforts and paying no heed to security, “I should follow her to Paradise and bring her back. Or stay there forever with her.”