I, Mona Lisa (37 page)

The instant I cleared it, the gate clanged shut behind me; the bolt slid locked with grim finality.

I found myself amid a group of perhaps forty men guarding the gate. They stood shoulder to shoulder; as the mare picked her way past them, their sweat-soaked bodies pressed against me.

“Mother of God!” one swore.

Another cried, “Where in Hell’s name did she come from?”

Their unsheathed swords caught on my train, shredded my skirts,
nicked my skin—and the mare’s flank, too, for she whinnied in complaint. But I guided her firmly, relentlessly, toward the front line.

There, men fought in the light of torches hung from the palazzo walls. The guards cast looming shadows on the rebellious citizens; the black outlines of their upraised swords extended far beyond reality, appearing to pierce men standing a good distance away.

I urged my reluctant mount beyond safety, into the fray. The air was cold but foul, redolent of smoke and burning rancid fat. The cacophony was maddening: The Signoria’s cow still tolled, horses screamed, and men cursed, while others shouted Messer Iacopo’s rallying cry.

But I could hear no countering
Palle! Palle!

Bodies danced about so quickly, in such uncertain light, that it was difficult to judge friend from foe. There were no colored banners here, no neatly arrayed forces with clearly marked enemies and orderly rows of lances; there was certainly no hero leading the charge. A sword swiped the air just behind me, barely missing my exposed leg; I felt the rush of air stirred by the blade.

My mount and I surged forward; our place was quickly filled by a peasant.

I could not see the soldier behind me dealing the blows, but I saw their result. The blade came down and bit into the man’s flesh between his neck and shoulder with a thud. The peasant screamed, so shrill and wild it was horrible to hear. Blood spilled from the wound and spread, dark and swift, down the front of his robe until it merged with the shadows. He fell to his knees shrieking, the sword still buried in him; the unseen soldier struggled mightily to free it. At last it came out with a sucking sound, then came down again, this time on the peasant’s head, with such force that—for the blink of an eye—a spray of blood, a fatal red halo, hung suspended in a beam of light.

The man fell forward, grazing my mare’s hooves.

I turned my head to glance behind me and met the gaze of the murderer: a Medici soldier, barely Giuliano’s age, his eyes filled with an odd, unfocused terror. He did not notice that I was a finely dressed woman, without a weapon, or that I had come from the direction of
the palazzo. He seemed only to know that he should heft his sword again and bring it down. And I was now in his path.

I ducked my head and goaded the mare into a gallop. We tore through the crowd; my knees and elbows banged against flesh and bone, metal and wood.

Soon I broke free and made my way east down the Via Larga, passing the loggia and the palazzo’s front entrance, where only a few years before Lorenzo had escorted me over the threshold. Medici guards still fought in small scattered groups, but the great entry doors had been abandoned, and a group of rioters were attempting to batter their way in with a heavy wooden beam. I rode through the alleyway Giovanni had taken to elude the crowd. From there, I made my way past the church of San Lorenzo down to the Baptistery of San Giovanni and the Piazza del Duomo. Small groups roamed the streets—a group of three riders, a pair of monks, a poor father and mother, running with squalling children in their arms.

Only when I reached the Duomo did the growing crowds force me to slow. Abruptly, I was completely encircled by men, two of them holding flaming branches. They lifted them higher to get a better look at me.

They were
giovani
, street ruffians.

“Pretty lady,” one called snidely. “Pretty lady, to be out riding with her skirts pulled up to her waist! Look, such delicate ankles!”

I scowled at them, impatient, and glanced about me. There were many people within earshot, true, but the tolling of the Signoria’s bell was much louder here, and everyone was shouting and running toward the piazza. There was no guarantee they would notice the cries of a solitary woman.

I did not want to cry out—not yet.

“Let me pass,” I snarled, and drew the dagger from my overdress; it came out fully sheathed.

The
giovani
laughed scornfully; they sounded like barking dogs.

“Look here!” one cried. “Why, Lisa di Antonio Gherardini has teeth!”

He was sharp chinned and scrawny, with wispy blond curls that thinned to bare flesh at his crown.

“Raffaele!” I lowered the dagger, relieved. It was the butcher’s son. “Raffaele, thank God, I need to pass—”

“I need to pass,” Raffaele echoed, in a mocking singsong. One of his mates giggled. “Look on her, boys. She’s one of
them.
Married Giuliano de’ Medici not two days ago.”

“A merchant’s daughter?” someone asked. “You lie!”

“God’s own truth,” Raffaele said firmly. His words, and the look in his eye, made me draw the dagger from its sheath. “What happened, Monna Lisa? Has your Giuli already forsaken you?”

I clenched the dagger. “I
will
pass. . . .”

Raffaele smiled wickedly. “Let’s see you try.”

Something whizzed past me in the darkness; my mare shrieked and reared. I held on desperately, but a second pebble stung my wrist like fire. I let go a wordless cry and dropped my weapon.

I felt another pebble, then another. The world heaved. I lost my reins, my sense of orientation, and went tumbling—against horseflesh, against cold air, against hard flagstone.

I lay on my side, sickened from pain, terrified because I could not draw a breath. Firelight flared overhead; I squinted as it spun slowly, along with the rest of my surroundings. Soon it was eclipsed by Raffaele’s face, half obliterated by shadow, half leering.

“Aren’t we the sheltered princess?” he said bitterly. “You don’t know how to stay on a horse or hold a weapon. Here.” The dagger appeared before my eyes. “Here is how to grip a knife.” A pause; the blade turned so that the tip, not the flat, pointed at me. “And here is how to use it. . . .”

Air.
I was frightened less by the dagger and more by my inability to breathe; my ribs, my chest, would not move. The world darkened a bit more, grew indistinct.

I heard a different voice, plaintive: “Can’t we have some fun with her first?”

Another: “Out here, in public?”

“No one cares! Look, they aren’t even watching!”

Raffaele now, disgusted: “And her, freshly done by a Medici?”

The dagger, a blur of silver, moved until I felt the tip rest against my throat; if I swallowed, it would cut me. I could see Raffaele’s hand and the black leather hilt.

Then hand and dagger disappeared as light faded to darkness.

H
ave I died?
I wondered. But no—my pain had resolved into a fierce headache and agony in my shoulder.

All at once, my chest gave a lurching heave, and I sucked in air as frantically as a drowning man.

Thus preoccupied, I noticed little more than blurry shadows, caught only an occasional intelligible word above the clatter of horses’ hooves, the tolling of the bell, and the noise of the crowd.

Above me, men on horseback bore torches—in my disorientation, there seemed to be hundreds of them, elongated black giants bearing flames that sparkled like huge orange diamonds.

One of the riders spoke; his voice bore the dignity of high office. “What are you doing with that lady?”

Beside me, Raffaele replied timidly: “She is the enemy of the people . . . the bride of Giuliano . . . a spy.”

The mounted man made a brief reply. I caught only “. . . della Signoria . . . protect . . .”

I was lifted. The stabbing pain from my injuries made me cry out.

“Hush, Madonna. We don’t mean to harm you.”

I was slung over a horse, my stomach pressed against the leather; my head and legs dangled against the horse’s flanks. A man nestled
into the saddle behind me, pushing against my waist and hip; the reins brushed against my back.

We rode. The weight of my hair caused it to work its way free of Alfonsina’s golden net, which fell, a treasure for some lucky soul to find. My face bounced against hot lathered horseflesh until my lip cracked; I tasted salt and blood. I saw only dark stone, heard the bell and the shouting. Both grew louder—the bell at last so loud and insistent, my skull throbbed with each peal; we were in the Piazza della Signoria. I tried to straighten, to lift my head, thinking, in my confusion, to call out Giuliano’s name. But the rider pushed me firmly down.

As I crossed the piazza, excitement traveled swift as a lightning bolt through the crowd. Their shouts were high-pitched, wild.

“Look—there he goes, the bastard!”

“Up there! The third window! See him swing!”

“
Abaso le palle!
Death to the Medici!”

I thrashed like a fish on the hook, my hair spilling forward, covering my eyes; I clawed at it, trying to see from my upside-down vantage, but it was no use. I could make out only shadowy figures, pressed close together.

I panicked as I thought of Francesco de’ Pazzi, hanging naked from a high window with the teeth of Archbishop Salviati’s corpse buried in his shoulder. I thought of my father saying,
Eighty men in five days . . . heaved out the windows of the Palazzo della Signoria.

I hung limp. “Giuliano,” I whispered, knowing that, in such an uproar, no one would ever hear me. “Giuliano,” I repeated, and began to weep.

They put me in a cell in the Bargello, the prison adjoining the palazzo. Mine was a small, dirty room, windowless, with stained floors and three walls, the corners silvery with spiderwebs. The fourth wall consisted of stone up to my waist, then thick, rough iron bars that ran up to the ceiling; the door was made of iron. Some straw had been scattered on the floor and in the center of the room rested a large wooden
bucket that served as a communal privy. The room itself admitted no light, but depended on the sconced torch in the corridor outside.

There were three of us there: me, Laura, and a lady thrice my age, stunningly dressed in aubergine silks and velvets. I believe she was one of the Tornabuoni—the noble family to which Lorenzo’s mother had belonged.

When the guard brought me in—groaning with pain—I pretended not to recognize Laura. Even for hours after the man had left, we did not look at each other.

We were ignored the first night. The gendarme who brought me in disappeared. After a time, the bell—deafeningly close, in the campanile next door—finally ceased ringing. I was grateful for only a short time. Afterward, hour upon hour, we heard the crowd outside suddenly hush . . . and then, after a brief silence, cheer raucously.

I imagined I could hear the song of the rope as it snapped taut.

The Tornabuoni woman, white and delicate as a pearl, twisted a kerchief in her hands and wept continuously. Ignoring the spiders, I lay propped in a corner, my bruised legs spread out in front of me, covered by my tattered skirts. Laura sat beside me, chest pressed to her knees, one arm coiled about them. When the crowd had briefly fallen silent, I asked, in a low voice, “Giuliano . . . ?”

Her answer was anguished. “I don’t know, Madonna; I don’t know . . .”

Another shout went up, and we both cringed.

In the morning they took Laura, and never brought her back.

I told myself they never executed women in enlightened Florence unless they were the vilest murderers . . . or traitors. Surely they had let Laura go, or at worst banished her.

I drew comfort from the fact that the crowds no longer roared outside. The quiet had to mean that the killing had stopped.

Rising unsteadily to my feet, I sucked in my breath at the pain in my stiff shoulder. The slightest movement stabbed. My limbs were numb from cold; the stone walls and floor were like ice. But I was far
more distraught by the fact that I had lost my wedding ring and the remaining gold medallion.

I passed the Tornabuoni woman to stand at the rusting iron door. She had ceased crying and now stood swaying on her feet, having been upright most of the night; her eyes were two bruises in the whiteness of her face, stark against her deep purple gown. I glanced at her and in return got a look full of hopelessness and rage; I turned quickly away.

I listened for the guard. While Laura had been with me, I had not wanted to utter Giuliano’s name lest I incriminate her, but now it was on the tip of my tongue. When the jailer finally appeared, I called out softly.

“What news? What news of Giuliano de’ Medici?”

He did not answer at once, but came and stood in front of the door. He fingered through the jangling keys, muttering to himself, until he decided on one, then tried it. It didn’t work, and so he fished out a similar one, dark and dull from disuse; it clanged and grated in the lock, but at last the door swung open with a lingering screech.

“Giuliano de’ Medici.” He sneered. “If you have any news of that scoundrel, best sing out when your time comes.”

He took no notice at all. “Madonna Carlotta,” he said, not unkindly. “Will you accompany me? It’s a simple matter. The Lord Priors want to ask you a few questions. They mean you no harm.”

Her gaze, her tone, was pure viciousness. “No harm . . . they have already caused me the greatest possible harm!”

“I can summon other men to help me,” he offered simply.

They stared at each other a moment; then the old woman walked out and stood beside him. The door was slammed behind them and locked.

I did not care. I did not care.
If you have any news of that scoundrel, best sing out. . . .

I hugged myself, not even feeling my injured shoulder. Such things were said only of the living. Giuliano was gone, and they did not know where.

.  .  .

I returned to my corner and settled into it as comfortably as I could, propping myself so that the cold wall numbed the pain in my shoulder. I heard church bells, but I dozed a bit and could not remember how many chimes had sounded.