Juliet (52 page)

But the Comandante said no. He did not believe her story, and turned her away. Before she left, however, Rosalina said to him, “One day you will be sorry for what you have done to me and to this child. One day, God will punish you for the justice you are denying me!”

The Comandante forgot all about this until, in 1348, the Black Death came through Siena. More than a third of the population died within months, and the mortality was worst inside the city. Bodies were piled in the streets, sons abandoned fathers, wives abandoned husbands; everyone was too afraid to remember what it means to be a human and not an animal.

In one week, Comandante Marescotti lost his mother, his wife, and all his five children; only he alone was left to survive. He washed them and dressed them, and he put them all on a cart and brought them to the cathedral to find a priest who could perform a funeral. But there were no priests. Those priests who were still alive were too busy taking care of the sick in the hospital next to the cathedral, the Santa Maria della Scala. Even there, they had too many dead bodies to be able to bury them all, and what they did was build a hollow wall inside the hospital and put all the bodies inside and seal it off.

When the Comandante arrived at the Siena Cathedral, there were Misericordia Brothers outside in the piazza digging a big hole for a mass grave, and he bribed them to admit his family into this holy ground. He told them that this was his mother, and his wife, and he told them the names and ages of all his children, and explained that they were dressed in their finest church clothes. But the men didn’t care. They took his gold and tipped the cart, and the Comandante saw all his loved ones—his
future—tumble into the hole with no prayers, no blessings, and no speranza … no hope.

When he walked back through town, he did not know where he went. He did not see anything around him. To him, it was the end of the world, and he began yelling at God, asking why he had been left alive to witness this misery, and to bury his own children. He even fell to his knees, and scooped up the dirty water from the gutter running with rot and death, and poured it over himself, and drank it, hoping to finally get sick and die like everyone else.

While he was there, kneeling in the mud, he suddenly heard the voice of a boy say to him, “I’ve tried that. It doesn’t work.”

The Comandante looked up at the boy, thinking he was looking at a ghost. “Romeo!” he said. “Romeo? Is it you?”

But it was not Romeo, just a boy of eight or so, very dirty and dressed in rags. “My name is Romanino,” said the boy. “I can pull that cart for you.”

“Why do you want to pull my cart?” asked the Comandante.

“Because I am hungry,” said Romanino.

“Here—” The Comandante took out the rest of his money. “Go buy some food.”

But the boy pushed his hand away and said, “I am not a beggar.”

So, the Comandante let the boy struggle to pull the cart all the way back to Palazzo Marescotti—occasionally, he helped him and gave the cart a little push—and when they arrived at the gate, the boy looked up at the eagle ornaments on the wall and said, “This is where my father was born.”

You can imagine what a shock it was to the Comandante to hear this, and he asked the boy, “How do you know that?”

“Mother used to tell me stories,” replied the boy. “She said my father was very brave. He was a great knight with arms this big. But he had to go and fight with the Emperor in the Holy Land, and he never returned. She used to say that maybe, one day, he would come back and look for me. And if he did, I had to tell him something, and then he would know who I was.”

“What did you have to tell him?”

The boy grinned, and just then, in that smile, the Comandante knew the truth before he even heard the words: “That I am a little eagle, an aquilino.”

That same night, Comandante Marescotti found himself sitting at the empty servants’ table in the kitchen, eating food for the first time in days. Across from him, Romanino was gnawing at a chicken bone, too busy to ask questions.

“Tell me,” said the Comandante, “when did your mother Rosalina die?”

“Long ago,” replied the boy. “Before all this. He beat her, you know. And one day, she didn’t get up. He yelled at her, and pulled at her hair, but she didn’t move. She didn’t move at all. Then he started crying. And I went up to her and talked to her, but she didn’t open her eyes. She was cold. I put my hand on her face—that was when I knew he had beat her too hard, and I told him so, and he kicked me, and then he tried to catch me, but I ran … out the door. And I just kept running. Even though he yelled after me, I just kept running, and running, until I was at my aunt’s, and she took me in, and I stayed there. I worked, you know. I did my bit. And I took care of the baby when it came, and helped her to put food on the table. And they liked me, I think they really liked having me around to take care of the baby, until … until everyone started dying. The baker died, and the butcher, and the farmer who sold us fruit, and we did not have enough food. But she kept giving me the same as the others, even though they were still hungry, so … I ran away.”

The boy looked at him with wise green eyes, and the Comandante thought to himself how strange it was that this boy, a skinny little eight-year-old, could have more integrity than he had ever seen in a man. “How did you survive,” he had to ask, “through all this?”

“I don’t know”—Romanino shrugged—“but Mother always told me I was different. Stronger. That I wouldn’t get sick and stupid like the others. She said that I had a different kind of head on my shoulders. And that’s why they didn’t like me. Because they knew I was better than them. That was how I survived. By thinking of what she said. About me. And them. She said I would survive. And that’s what I did.”

“Do you know who I am?” asked the Comandante at last.

The boy looked at him. “You’re a great man, I think.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“But you are,” insisted Romanino. “You’re a great man. You have a big kitchen. And a chicken. And you let me pull your cart all the way. And now you’re sharing your chicken with me.”

“That doesn’t make me a great man.”

“You were drinking sewer water when I found you,” observed the boy. “Now you are drinking wine. To me, that makes you the greatest man I’ve ever met.”

THE NEXT MORNING
, Comandante Marescotti took Romanino back to the boy’s aunt and uncle. As they walked together down the steep streets towards Fontebranda, weaving their way through garbage and gore, the sun came out for the first time in days. Or perhaps it had been shining every day, but the Comandante had spent all his time in the darkness of his home, pouring water to lips that were beyond drinking.

“What is your uncle’s name?” asked the Comandante, realizing that he had forgotten to ask that most obvious question.

“Benincasa,” replied the boy. “He makes colors. I like the blue, but it is expensive.” He glanced up at the Comandante. “My father always wore nice colors, you know. Yellow mostly, with a black cape that looked like wings when he was riding fast. When you are rich you can do that.”

“I suppose,” said the Comandante.

Romanino stopped at a gate of tall iron bars and looked glumly into the courtyard. “This is it. That is Monna Lappa, my aunt. Or … she is not really my aunt, but she wanted me to call her that anyway.”

Comandante Marescotti was surprised at the size of the place; he had imagined something far more humble. Inside the courtyard, three children were helping their mother spread out laundry, while a tiny girl crawled around on her hands and knees, picking up grains laid out for the geese.

“Romanino!” The woman jumped to her feet when she saw the boy through the gate, and as soon as the bar had been lifted off the hook and the door opened, she pulled him inside and embraced him with tears and kisses. “We thought you were dead, you silly boy!”

In the commotion, nobody took any notice of the baby girl, and the Comandante—who had been just about to back away from the happy family reunion—was the only person with the presence of mind to see her crawling towards the open gate and to bend over and pick her up with awkward hands.

It was an uncommonly pretty little girl, thought Comandante
Marescotti, and much more charming than one would expect from someone that size. In fact, despite his lack of experience with such tiny personnel, he found himself almost unwilling to hand the baby back to Monna Lappa, and he simply stood there, looking at the little face, feeling something stirring inside his chest, like a small spring flower forcing its way up through the frozen soil.

The fascination was equal on both sides; soon, the baby began slapping and pulling at the Comandante’s features with all signs of delight.

“Caterina!” cried her mother, quickly liberating the distinguished visitor by snatching away the girl. “I beg your pardon, Messere!”

“No need, no need,” said the Comandante. “God has kept his hand over you and yours, Monna Lappa. Your house is blessed, I think.”

The woman looked at him for a long time. Then she bent her head. “Thank you, Messere.”

The Comandante turned to go, but hesitated. Turning again, he looked at Romanino. The boy was standing straight, like a young tree braced against the wind, and yet his eyes had lost their courage.

“Monna Lappa,” said Comandante Marescotti, “I want—I would like—I wonder if you might consider giving up this boy. To me.”

The woman’s expression was mostly one of disbelief.

“You see,” the Comandante quickly added, “I believe he is my grandson.”

The words came as a surprise to everyone, including the Comandante. While Monna Lappa looked almost frightened at the confession, Romanino was positively cock-a-hoop, and the boy’s glee nearly made the Comandante burst out laughing despite himself.

“You are Comandante Marescotti?” exclaimed the woman, her cheeks flushed with excitement. “Then it was true! Oh, the poor girl! I never—” Too shocked to know how to behave, Monna Lappa grabbed Romanino by the shoulder and pushed him towards the Comandante. “Go! Go, you silly boy! And … don’t forget to thank the Lord!”

She did not have to say it twice, and before the Comandante even had a visual confirmation of the advance, Romanino’s arms were already wrapped around his midsection, a snotty nose burrowing into the embroidered velvet.

“Come now,” he said, patting the dirty head, “we need to find you a pair of shoes. And other things. So, stop crying.”

“I know,” sniffled the boy, wiping away his tears, “knights don’t cry.”

“They certainly do,” said the Comandante, taking the boy’s hand, “but only when they are clean and dressed, and wearing shoes. Do you think you can wait that long?”

“I’ll do my best.”

When they walked away down the street together, hand in hand, Comandante Marescotti found himself struggling against an onslaught of shame. How was it possible that he, a man sick with grief, who had lost everything save his own heartbeat, could find so much comfort in the presence of a small, sticky fist tucked firmly inside his own?

IT WAS MANY YEARS
later when, one day, a traveling monk came to Palazzo Marescotti and asked to speak with the head of the family. The monk explained that he had come from a monastery in Viterbo, and that he had been instructed by his abbot to return a great treasure to its proper owner.

Romanino, who was now a grown man of thirty years, invited the monk inside and sent his daughters upstairs to see if their great-grandfather, the old Comandante, had the strength to meet with the guest. While they waited for the Comandante to come down, Romanino made sure the monk had food and drink, and his curiosity was so great that he asked the stranger about the nature of the treasure.

“I know little about its origins,” replied the monk between mouthfuls, “but I do know that I cannot take it back with me.”

“Why not?” inquired Romanino.

“Because it has a great, destructive power,” said the monk, helping himself to more bread. “Everyone who opens the box falls ill.”

Romanino sat back on his chair. “I thought you said it was a treasure? Now you tell me it is evil!”

“Pardon me, Messere,” the monk corrected him, “but I never said it was evil. I just said that it has great powers. For protection, but also for destruction. And therefore, it must be returned to the hands that can control those powers. It must be returned to its proper owner. That is all I know.”

“And that owner is Comandante Marescotti?”

The monk nodded again, but this time with less conviction. “We believe so.”

“Because if it is not,” Romanino pointed out, “you have brought a demon into my house, you realize.”

The monk looked sheepish. “Messere,” he said, urgingly, “please believe that I had no intention of harming you or your family. I am only doing what I have been instructed to do. This box”—he reached into his satchel and took out a small and very simple wooden box which he put gently down on the table—“was given to us by the priests of San Lorenzo, our cathedral, and I believe that maybe—but I am not sure—it contains a relic of a saint that was recently sent to Viterbo by its noble patron in Siena.”

“I have heard of no such saint!” exclaimed Romanino, eyeing the box with apprehension. “Who was the noble patron?”

The monk folded his hands in respect. “The pious and modest Monna Mina of the Salimbeni, Messere.”

“Huh.” Romanino fell silent for a while. He had heard of the lady, certainly—who had not heard of the young bride’s madness and the alleged curse on the basement wall?—but what kind of saint would befriend the Salimbenis? “Then may I ask why you are not returning this so-called treasure to her?”

“Oh!” The monk was horrified at the idea. “No! The treasure doesn’t like the Salimbenis! One of my poor brethren, a Salimbeni by birth, died in his sleep after touching the box—”

“God damn you, monk!” barked Romanino, and stood up. “Take your cursed box and leave my house at once!”

“But then, he was a hundred and two years old!” the monk hastened to add. “And other people who touched it have had miraculous recoveries from long-term ailments!”