Chiara – Revenge and Triumph (45 page)

"Lady Maria, it is a most auspicious privilege to welcome you to our humble house in celebration for my betrothal to Lady Lucrezia. I would be honored to introduce her to your ladyship."

He stepped backward, took Chiara’s hand and led her to Lady Maria.

"Lady Maria, my future wife, Lady Lucrezia Alberti de’ Morrone of Naples."

"Lady Maria," Chiara said softly, while she curtsied formally, at the same time curious, in spite of her predicament, how the countess would react. Then she raised her eyes. The bewildered expression of the woman she adored changed to hurt and then anger.

"What perfidious trickery is this, Lady Chiara? This time you have gone too far. Was it not enough that you grieved your father while he was alive? Do you also have to dishonor his memory?"

The words cut deep, because she knew them to be true, at least in part.

An ominous hush had descended on the guests. Lady Heloïse audibly sucked in her breath and brought a hand to her mouth.

"Do you have nothing to say, unfortunate girl?"

Chiara raised herself to her full height, her chin set firmly. "My Lady, violation and injustice rob honor, but just revenge restores it." Her voice was firm and hard. Her eyes did not waver under the blazing gaze of the countess.

Niccolo looked baffled from one to the other. Finally, he found his voice. "Honorable Lady, I do not understand of what you accuse Lady Lucrezia?"

"Lady Lucrezia," she replied with a derisive sneer. "This is Chiara da Narni, the girl you were once betrothed to, the woman you saw as the corago of I Magnifici."

"This cannot be. With all due respect to your ladyship, you must be mistaken." He sounded like a chastised little boy. "There is a slight resemblance between them, but Lady Lucrezia is the daughter of Casa Alberti of Naples. I have testimonials to that effect."

"You naive fool. Ask her!"

He turned to Chiara, eyes pleading.

For a fleeting moment, she wondered whether she should deny it, but she was not willing to contradict Lady Maria openly. Her esteem for the woman was too strong.

She locked eyes with Niccolo and said firmly: "I am Chiara da Narni."

Lucia’s worried smile turned into hurt, her eyes crying ‘Why? Why?’ Chiara felt like being stabbed through the heart.

Niccolo took a step back, as if bitten by a snake. Then an almost insane look convulsed his face. His "You snake!" was cut off by the shouting of his father.

"Chiara da Narni, Chiara da Narni, here? Moro! Moro! Kill her, kill her!"

He tried to rise from his chair but fell back helplessly, renewing his outburst of vile abuse and calls of "kill her". Some of the guests had retreated to the walls and all stared in fascination at the woman standing alone and undeterred in the middle, the woman accused of blinding Massimo Sanguanero.

She was looking for a break to escape, but the main entrance was blocked by Lady Maria and her entourage. Then she noticed the countess look past her and saw her eyes widen in terror. Instantly sensing a threat from her back, she whipped around, drawing two knives from her belt at the same time and let the one in her right hand fly before she had completed the turn. A split second later it struck Moro’s throat. His raised sword clattered onto the marble. The momentum carried him another step forward before he buckled to his knees, both hands going to his throat. Cries of fright and dismay echoed in the loggia. The old man’s shouting stopped. By then Chiara had drawn a third knife and made fleeting eye contact with the men in the circle, her intentions clear. She also knew her advantage. None of them was armed, since Siena’s ordinance prohibited men wearing arms in the city unless called up by the council to do so.

Nobody moved. She took a quick step to Moro, withdrew the knife and wiped it on the man’s doublet, not losing the guests from her sight. He fell backward. The sickening rattle of a man drowning in his own blood was the only sound, joined a moment later by the lone sigh of a woman fainting and slumping to the floor.

Suddenly, the old man shouted again: "Moro, where are you? Have you killed the snake?"

"Old man, your loyal Moro is dying. He has given you his last breath."

This time he managed to rise. His face looked crazed. "Where are you, you whore? I will kill you with my own hands," he croaked, walking with hesitant steps toward her voice, his outstretched hands searching for her.

"You promised to do that before, old man, on the Santa Caterina, on the deck above the cabin where you had me locked in."

He came to a halt, hands still outstretched, but no longer searching.

"You remember how you put it? … You need reminding? … It would be a shame to throw her away before tasting her young flesh… And you recall your son’s answer? … What a splendid idea!" Her strident voice rang through the room. Many spectators — the assembly had the unreal air of a scene in a play — audibly sucked in their breath, and then utter silence hung over the room, even Moro’s death rattle had stopped. "Yes, old man, you burned those words into my mind forever."

Suddenly, Lucia’s anguished cry shattered the silence. "Oh father, tell me it is not true, father, please."

Massimo Sanguanero briefly turned his distorted face toward his daughter.

"Yes, old man, do you dare to deny that you tasted that young flesh, that you violated me and that I punished you then and there? But that was not enough for you, was it? You also had to steal my inheritance with lies, and now I made you pay again. Ten thousand florins! Do you think that is a fair price?"

"She is a witch!" came his crazed scream. "Kill her, Niccolo, kill her!"

"Your son will do nothing, because he is a coward. In fact, he is right now coming with me as a guarantee that nobody tries to prevent me from leaving." As she said that, she took three quick steps to Niccolo, who half turned, trying to get away, but she was too fast. She grabbed his left arm and twisted it up his back, before he knew what was happening, while her right pressed a knife into his kidney area.

"
Avanti
!" she said sharply, pushing him ahead of her.

The spectators watched spellbound. Nobody moved, except for the countess and her entourage who hurried aside to let her pass. At the entrance to the loggia she briefly looked over her shoulder. "If anyone follows me, he is dead." Then she briefly locked eyes with Mercurio. She saw proud approval in them.

Once at the bottom of the stairs, she checked again that nobody followed. Only a few faces peered cautiously down from the entrance to the loggia. When she saw Niccolo’s office to the left, an idea sprung into her mind — the little book. So rather than make directly for the exit, once she was out of sight from the stairs, she pushed him toward the office.

"Open."

When he did not react immediately, she increased the pressure of the knife in his side. He took the key from his coat pocket and opened the door. She pushed him in before he could retrieve the key and forced him to sit in his chair behind the desk. Then she grabbed the little book from the shelf, quickly opened it the make sure that it really was her book, and slipped it into one of her deep skirt pockets.

Niccolo’s face contorted into a grimace of hatred. "You will not get far, all of the Baglione will be after you until you are dead."

She did not deign him with an answer.
I’ve done it,
was the jubilant silent cry.

Speed was now essential. She left the room, locked the door and took the key along. In the shadow of the entrance, she quickly unbuttoned her skirt, revealing the black breeches underneath, donned the skirt over her shoulders like a cape, removed a few pins to release her plaits, and shook her hair a bit, letting some strands fall partially over her face. It hardly took more than half a minute. Then she stepped outside and walked up Via di Camollia at a measured pace, taking the first side street to the left to Via della stufa secca, off the direct path to Casato di sopra, and by various detours went to Via delle Cerchia. When she met up with the people in the street, she turned her head away or hid her face behind the book. Fortunately, there were few. Near a cross-street, she heard voices and running feet resounding on the paving stones along Banchi di sopra, a street over to her left. She waited in the recess of a house and then resumed her path.

In the house of Via delle Cerchia, she changed into the young priest, tied up all her belongings into two bundles, and made for the stables at the end of the street. She gave the stable hand a few coins, asking him to return on Monday the key of the little house to its owner and the key to the house on Casato di sopra to the servant couple. Half an hour later, she passed through Porta Pispini with her two horses and took the road toward Rapolano. She would leave that road two leagues before the baths and go over the hills into Val di Chiana and then on to Arezzo, a two-day ride for her.

As the sun dipped behind the hills, she looked back to the west. Clouds at the horizon, like carcasses torn to bits by wolves, left a few holes of washed-out pink sky, fiery underbellies of yellows and brilliant orange, the closer ones already turning red like dripping blood. A shudder went up her spine. An omen of what was to come, Niccolo’s threat echoing in her mind?

She turned away, looking for a farmhouse to stay the night.

18

October, on the way to Rome, 1349

I fled Siena to join up with I Magnifici in Arezzo. Unmasked by Contessa d’Appiano, I must admit to my shame that this very fact was the pinnacle of my revenge — I triumphed over father and son Sanguanero in front of their fellow merchants. I had achieved everything I had set out to do; even the book of poems was mine again. My only regret was that I also hurt a young woman I had come to like, Lucia, Niccolo’s sister. I can still hear her anguished plea to her father to deny that he had violated me.

There was another cloud on the horizon, but I hoped that time would dissolve it or the wind blow it away. How wrong I was! Niccolo had cursed me with the threat that every Baglione would thirst for my blood.

To put ourselves beyond their reach, we planned to go to Rome and pass the winter there in the comfort of the city, rather than suffer the hardships of the road. In Rome we could choose when and where to perform. Money was no problem. But as so often happens with plans, you enjoy making them, you may even embark on them only to be thwarted by events that you had not accounted for.

We set out from Arezzo, going south, through Castiglion and Cortona. At the Lago di Perugia, we continued south, avoiding Perugia and a possible encounter with the Baglione, and entered Siena territory again, but I was not afraid that this could spell trouble — Siena was several days’ ride away from Chiusi, this old town which reminded me of the Etruscan vases that Niccolo had stolen from my Elba castle. Our plan was to continue along the River Chiana to Orvieto and then join Via Flaminia to Rome, but it was not to be. Alda fell ill, and we ended up spending most of the winter in a pleasant little mansion near the baths of Chianciano, nursing her back to health. It was a time of contemplation and introspection, but also a time of trying to solve the puzzle of the hidden treasure whose whereabouts lay in the secret of the little book of Latin poems.

* * * 

Chiara arrived in Arezzo two days after the troupe and found them in the inn Pepe had told her. To say that there was consternation when they heard what happened in Siena would be an understatement. While Jacomo was visibly proud to hear about how Casa Sanguanero was publicly humiliated, and Alda worried about Chiara’s safety, Orlando was upset about what this could mean for his safety and that even his hard-earned share of the spoils was now in jeopardy, that Casa Medici might well go back on their promise to keep the funds safe for them. Even Alda mentioned that they might never see that money again, but then also added that this was the least of her concerns. Although Orlando never voiced it to her directly, Veronica told Chiara that he blamed her for dragging him into this unfortunate affair. Chiara did her best to calm them about the money. She was confident that di Bicci would not renege and forgo the opportunity to hurt Casa Sanguanero, even to the point of bankrupting them. The threat they posed of preempting Florence in the spice trade was too big to be ignored. But she wrote to di Bicci, warning him of what happened in Siena and had the letter dispatched by courier to Florence. It cost her a whole florin.

Rather reluctantly, she gave in to Orlando’s request to give a private performance that he had arranged. She would have preferred to leave the area quickly without advertising their presence by offering shows and possibly alerting the Baglione of Perugia. Even before leaving Arezzo, they already received another invitation to present
Phormio
to a select group of nobles in Cortona. There she let it be known that they were on their way to Perugia and Assisi, just in case Niccolo had already notified the Baglione. But rather than turn east at the top of Lago di Perugia — Lago Trasimeno in later centuries — they continued south to Chiusi, where they arrived six days after leaving Arezzo, each day covering a strenuous distance, except for the extra days in Castiglion and Cortona.

In Chiusi, they gave a public show of the knife-throwing act, followed by short skits. They intended to stay no more than two nights, unless a private invitation could be procured, and then continue on to Orvieto. The weather was becoming cold and everybody was getting eager for Rome and the comfort it promised.

When they were packing up in Piazza del Mercato of Chiusi, after the show, Chiara noticed Alda’s glossy eyes.

"Alda, are you not feeling well?" she queried concerned.

"Oh, it’s nothing, maybe just a cold. There was a rather fresh wind blowing while we traveled along the lake, and I might have caught something. Don’t worry."

Chiara touched her forehead. It was burning. She now was full of worry. "You have a high fever." She turned to Pepe and Jacomo, who were folding the wooden board. "Pepe, take Alda to the tavern, right away, and see that she gets a hot drink of spiced wine. Keep her warm. Get a fire going."