The Lion and the Rose (19 page)

* * *

I
n the end, however, we did see the great burning that would be known as the Bonfire of the Vanities. The fires were lit at noon, accompanied by a citywide clamor of church bells, and smoke was roiling up toward the sky when Madonna Giulia’s carriage with its envelope of papal guards rolled out into the streets of Florence. Even emptier streets—everyone in this city, it seemed, had flocked to watch the burning. Or else they stayed home and prayed.

“Stop the carriage,” Madonna Giulia called to her captain as we approached the Piazza della Signoria.

“Madonna—”

“I said stop!”

The wheels creaked, and we gazed out. A throng of fervent figures choked the
piazza
; men cheering and roaring, women sobbing and casting their cosmetics pots or their mirrors into the blaze; children competing to see who could throw a toy farthest into the flames. A great eight-sided inferno, larger than a house, boiling black smoke in great billows that immediately made little Laura begin to cough. Giulia pulled her daughter away from the window, but I stayed, my stomach rolling sickly. I saw ranks of white-robed Angels singing hymns in their loud fervent voices; Dominicans weeping and lifting their hands up to the heavens as they railed at God. I saw a frail little nun assisting an Angel as he flung a painted panel of nude sea nymphs into the flames; I saw statues and mirrors, velvet hangings and illuminated books and playing cards waiting their turn to be burned. I saw a bent man in a patched robe with tears streaming down his face, praying as he flung armloads of drawings and canvases onto the pyre, and for a moment I thought it was Maestro Botticelli, but I blinked and he had disappeared.

The smoke billowed again, and I saw a black-robed friar with fleshy lips and a great hooked nose, elevated above the others. He flung his arms upward, outspread like a crucifix, howling at the heavens, and I was too far away to hear any of his words, but I heard the answering screams responding to the cries of the beast himself. Fra Savonarola flung one finger out toward his personal inferno, and I saw the figure that had been propped at the very top of Florence’s illicit luxuries. The bulky, straw-stuffed figure of a man in rich jeweled robes.

“Is it His Holiness?” Giulia said, low-voiced.

The smoke coiled down again like a tremendous serpent, hiding everything from my eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Do they really hate him so much?”

“Of course they do,
madonna
. They are sheep, and they believe whatever they are told. Everyone hates powerful men.”

“They wouldn’t if they knew him,” she said passionately. “If they saw how hard he works—how he denies himself sleep and wine and rich food—”

“Not much else,” I murmured.

“How he’ll receive any petitioner, no matter how low-born, because he says every man should have the right to address the Holy Father—how he wouldn’t even
care
that they say these things of him, because he says Rome is a free city and anyone can say or write what they please!” Giulia took the crumpled ball of the pamphlet and flung it out the window, clutching Laura even tighter. “Does that sound like an Antichrist to you?”

“We’re in Florence, not Rome,” I said, and waved out the window at Savonarola’s hell. “This is not a free city to be saying anything.”

“Drive on,” Giulia called to her captain, and the carriage jolted into motion again. Giulia stared into her own thoughts, stroking Laura’s hair, and I watched the enormous cloud of smoke rising into the sky as we pulled away from it. The paintings that would be going up in the engulfing flames, the statues, the works of art, the books.
Dio
, the books.

Just as much trash as art
, I told myself. Would the world really be so deprived, losing a few cosmetics pots and pairs of dice and bad paintings of naked goddesses?

But the books
, I couldn’t help thinking, and a twist of helpless anger curdled my stomach.

“I thought for a moment that I saw Maestro Botticelli in that crowd,” Giulia said perhaps an hour outside Florence. “He was tossing his own paintings on the fire. I suppose one of them was the sketch of me.”

“I suppose so,” I answered.

“Good,” said Giulia Farnese.

I wasn’t stupid enough to say so, but I couldn’t agree with her there. Because I’d seen that sketch take shape under Botticelli’s hand, during that one awkward sitting in the papal apartments, and even half formed in chalk lines with the colors just hinted at, it had the look of something breathtaking. He’d caught her expression, a fearful wonder I’d seen as I described the things they said of her Pope, and her hair would have been a marvel of a thing on canvas, picked out in gold leaf and contrasting with the white of her body and the darkness he’d scribbled about her with the half-formed serpents and monsters of the underworld. A canvas that might have rivaled his
Birth of Venus
, and now the world would never see it.

Savonarola’s great bonfire was only a smudge on the horizon behind us now, but the wind had caught the whirling cloud of ash and brought it down on the road like a strangely warm storm. Flakes of ash powdered Giulia’s hair like deathly snow as we made our way back to Rome.

PART TWO

April 1497–June 1497

CHAPTER SIX

O bawdy Church . . .

You have become a wanton whore with your lust.

You are lower than the beasts, a monster of depravity.

—FRA SAVONAROLA

Carmelina

C
armelina.” Madonna Giulia greeted me distractedly. “What do unicorns eat?”

“Um.” I blinked. “Virgins?”

“That’s dragons. Isn’t it? I thought unicorns only got
captured
by virgins.” Giulia rummaged in a box before her mirror, back to me. “And then there’s the question of what lions eat, and serpents and peacocks and swans. Goodness,” she sighed. “It’s going to be a disaster.”

“What is,
madonna
?” I ventured into her chamber, drying my hands on the apron I hadn’t had an opportunity to take off before being whisked upstairs to see my mistress. For a panicked instant I thought I was going to be dismissed. A fortnight’s agony of waiting and praying and dousing myself with vinegar had given me the relief of knowing I wasn’t with child—but I could still lose my reputation and everything else with it. All Bartolomeo had to do was go beyond glaring at me stonily and let something slip, maybe show the marks my nails had left in his back and tell the scullions what a whore the
maestra di cucina
was . . .

But no: Madonna Giulia beckoned me in with her usual friendly wave, and her chamber bustled with a dozen robe makers throwing swatches of figured velvet and Spanish brocade over everything. Slippers and sleeves lay discarded on every surface, the goat gnawed on a curtain tassel, maids darted back and forth like schooling lake smelt—La Bella’s usual cheerful disorder, except for the masks. Dozens and dozens of masks, feathered and jeweled, beaded and eyeless, that lay about the room on every surface staring at me.

“Sweet Santa Marta,” I said as La Bella herself turned from her mirror to look at me. “What’s it supposed to be?”

“A unicorn.” Madonna Giulia doffed her white-and-gold beaded half mask with its tip-tilted eyes and spiraled gilt-and-ivory horn. “I’ve decided to be a unicorn for His Holiness’s masquerade in a fortnight. It’s a Menagerie Ball, so we’re all to come as animals. So, what
does
one serve a unicorn at a Menagerie Ball?”

I vacillated dubiously between holy water and oats. You couldn’t even get a decent
frittella
out of holy water and oats. Then I counted my days and blinked. “A fortnight? That’s Easter.”

“Just afterward.” Madonna Giulia’s voice was very dry. “The very instant Lent is done, in other words. The soonest His Holiness could host another celebration for the Duke of Gandia’s triumph at Ostia.”

I heard a few snorts about the room at that. Juan Borgia had come prancing back to Rome crowing of the victory he had won over the remainders of the French army, which had immured itself in Ostia, but the winds of gossip had it that his generals deserved the credit. Besides, what did a small victory count when all the ground gained over the rebellious branches of the Orsini family last fall had had to be given back already to keep the peace?

“In any case,” Madonna Giulia concluded, tossing the unicorn mask aside and picking up a silver-white swan mask with an ivory beak and a cockade of white feathers, “we’re to design a menu for the masquerade. I’m not sure what to serve a lot of wild beasts, or guests dressed as wild beasts. I suggest we don’t serve it in a trough. The last thing we need to do is give Juan ideas.” She wrinkled her nose. “I wonder if he’ll come dressed as a jackass.”

“He wouldn’t need a costume.” I moved a death’s-head mask from a stool to sit down. Unlike the little Countess of Pesaro, Madonna Giulia did not keep her servants standing during long interviews. “We’ll serve a
collatione
, lots of small dishes served on vine leaves, since beasts don’t eat off plates. And tiny one-bite sort of nibbles, since beasts don’t use spoons either.” A great many cold thin-shaved slivers of fine meats; salted nuts and candied curls of citron; endives stuffed with cheese and drizzled with oil; olives and Spanish mustard and a great blood-rare roast of ox shoulder for all the masked predators . . . “And sugar subtleties,” I decided. “Molded and dyed in the shape of beasts. I can make a spun-sugar unicorn with a gilded horn for you, Madonna Giulia.”

“And a red sugar bull for His Holiness.” La Bella’s dimple flashed. “He’s to come as the Borgia bull, of course.” The dimple disappeared. “Oh, dear.”

“
Madonna?
” I ventured.

She gestured at the roomful of masks. Three of her maids were giggling and trying on feathered harlequin half masks before her mirror, but their mistress looked somber. “It’s not really a good idea, is it? Everyone at each other’s throats as it is, and then put them all in masks and tell them to behave like beasts?”

I shrugged, uncomfortable. My mistress had been very sober-faced since her return from Florence, distracted and more inclined to curl up in her chamber playing with Laura rather than join the hilarious evenings of games and cards and song that Madonna Lucrezia and Sancha of Aragon planned every night. It was Lent, the time for somber reflection rather than raucous play, but that had certainly not slowed
them
down. Whenever Sancha of Aragon visited the Palazzo Santa Maria, she always had some whine for the steward about “Carp
again
?” If she even bothered to come to
cena
at all, with all her bed-hopping. It wasn’t long before all the maids had picked up Madonna Giulia’s name for her, and I had to remind them that they could
not
go about referring to the Princess of Squillace as “the Tart of Aragon,” at least not where anyone could hear them.

Madonna Giulia was still looking at the mask in her lap, and I tried to coax a smile from her. “It’s just a masquerade, Madonna Giulia. Harmless fun, you know—and I come from Venice; I know about masquerades.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” Giulia smiled at me, and a thoughtful gleam lit her eye. Seizing my wrist, she pulled me up from the stool and looked me over. “Well, I may not particularly want to act the hostess in a horned mask for this affair, but if I’m to do it, I shall have some fun. What beast will we dress
you
up as, Carmelina?”

“Me?” I nearly blurted out that the last time I’d worn a mask, it had been fleeing a convent during Carnivale while dressed as a man in order to escape charges of altar desecration. “Madonna Giulia, I’m just the one making sugar subtleties and preparing the banquet. Not a guest.”

“Nonsense. Every one of my maids is going; we’re sneaking you all in for a lark.” She gave her enchanting grin. “In a mask and a costume, who’s to know? There will be hundreds of guests; no one will ever find out.”

“You’d have a costume and a mask made for me, when I’d never wear it but once?” I cast an incredulous eye about the swatches of fine-woven cloth, the fragile costly masks. “The expense—”

“Bother the expense,” said my mistress blithely. Of course, she never had to think about the cost of anything. Ten extra costumes so all her maids could attend the masquerade? Why not!

Very few noble ladies like Giulia Farnese bothered befriending their maidservants as she did, but I’d long since gotten used to the informality in the Palazzo Santa Maria. The plain truth was that La Bella had no women to talk to
but
the maidservants. The other highborn wives of Rome were far too virtuous to come calling on the Pope’s whore. They envied her looks, they copied everything she wore, they fawned on her at public functions if their husbands needed some favor from the Holy Father—but they were certainly too good to befriend her. So she befriended the
palazzo
’s maids instead, gossiping and giggling with them, lending them her perfumes and hair potions, drying their tears over failed love affairs or helping arrange marriages for them. I couldn’t count the number of times Madonna Giulia had come tripping into my kitchens for a plate of
biscotti
or a little cooking instruction (at least until I banned her from cooking instruction, because the woman could set cold water on fire just by walking past the pot).

No, Giulia Farnese was a far cry from most noble mistresses who might confide in their maids but certainly wanted to hear no confessions in return—but I’d gotten used to her hilarity and her mad schemes, and now it seemed her latest mad scheme was to sneak all her maidservants into the Menagerie Ball. Robe makers descended on me with knotted measuring cords even as I protested, marking the length of my arms and the circumference of my wrists, while Giulia stood back with a critical eye. “The question is,” she continued, “what animal will suit you best? Pantisilea over there is going to make a splendid cat—”

“A cat in heat?” I couldn’t help saying, but Pantisilea just made a face at me as she folded a pair of our mistress’s sleeves. I’d never known a greater slut than Pantisilea, except maybe Sancha of Aragon. But everyone hated the Tart of Aragon with a passion, the spiteful bitch, and skinny cheerful Pantisilea was everybody’s favorite.

“We’ve got a gray beaded mask for her with whiskers and pointed ears,” Giulia continued, unruffled. “Pia, now, she’s going be a dear little blackbird; I’ve got a mask for her with a jet-beaded beak and a glorious crest of shiny black feathers . . .”

Over by the mirror, Pia bobbed a curtsy at her mistress and traded a shy little smile of her own.

“So,” Giulia concluded. “What shall we dress you as?”

I imagined my father’s roar of outrage. “Servants don’t mix with their masters.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, servants and masters mix constantly. How many maids in this house have Cesare and Juan slept with?”

“Me, for one,” Pantisilea volunteered. “You wouldn’t have time to wring out a shirt in the time it took the Duke of Gandia to finish, but Cardinal Borgia—well, let’s say he likes some
very
odd things!”

I coughed, remembering. Let’s just say Cesare Borgia happened on me once when he was bored, as well. He’d spread me out on a table, pinned my arms out and taken his time, and I’d been willing enough because he was beautiful, as beautiful as his brother Juan and far less of a lout. But I wouldn’t say I thought about it much when it was over, or yearned for it to happen again. Lying with Cesare Borgia had been a bit like watching an eclipse of the sun: strange and frightening and dark, if also rather exciting, and once is enough.

“Ugh, don’t tell me.” Giulia dismissed Cesare and whatever odd tastes he might have, looking at me. “Carmelina, don’t argue; you must come to the masquerade. How many banquets have you served in your life? Wouldn’t you like to
eat
the food for once, instead of just cooking it?”

I felt a smile tug at my lips despite myself. I could slip away easily once the dishes were prepared—any cook worth her mettle had her kitchens well trained enough to run smoothly without her. “Why not?” I heard myself saying, and Giulia applauded. I gave a little curtsy of thanks. Why not, indeed? A chance to get away from the tense atmosphere that was my kitchens these days; Bartolomeo’s expressionless stares and icy silences were infecting the scullions and the undercooks, who seemed to know something was wrong even if they weren’t sure what. I tried to address him briskly, nudge him back into his old enthusiasm for what he was cooking—really, a cook was worth nothing if he couldn’t keep his own feelings out of the kitchens! But I couldn’t quite seem to meet his gaze when I gave him orders now; I had to fix on the wall over his shoulder and ignore the sick swoop in my stomach whenever I thought how easily he could ruin me.

And maybe some of that sick swoop was shame, for the way I’d kissed him and cried out under him and then stamped all over him.
I’m sorry
, I wanted to say. Of course, it wasn’t really my fault that he had a whole
palazzo
of pretty maidservants to choose from and he’d decided to fix on the runaway nun, but still . . .
I’m sorry.

Maybe I
deserved
to be ruined.

In any case, a chance to get out of my kitchens sounded like a far more appealing prospect than it usually did.

“Just don’t dress me up as a heron,” I warned Madonna Giulia. “My sister called me Heron all through childhood because I was so tall.”

“No, no, not a heron.” My mistress gave another up-and-down analysis of my lanky frame. “Something very exotic, I think. No common sparrows or kitchen cats for you. What do you say, girls?” she called to her maids. “What animal is tall, exotic, and
very
long-legged?”

“A stag . . .”

“A mare . . .”

“A gazelle . . .”

“What’s a gazelle?”

That costume. Looking back, I think you could fairly say it was all the fault of that thrice-damned costume.

Giulia

I
really don’t know why women bother so much with their gowns. We fuss so much over the cut of a headdress, the width of a neckline, the exact degree to which a shift can be pulled through the slits of a sleeve. I suppose we do it for ourselves, for the satisfaction we get looking in the glass and knowing we can sally out into the world looking our best. Or we do it for other women, hoping that there won’t be a single married matron or virgin girl at Mass paying attention to the sermon because they’ll all be taking down every detail of your new sleeves with French puffs. We certainly shouldn’t bother dressing for men. Because if a man approves of how you look in that new gown, the only thing he wants to do is get it off you.