The Shepherdess of Siena: A Novel of Renaissance Tuscany (2 page)

C
HAPTER
2

Siena, Pugna Hills

N
EW
Y
EAR
’
S
D
AY
, 1573

The young painter stood shivering at his easel, gazing over the sheep-studded hills. A towered castle loomed above him, and beyond that rose the dust-colored walls of Siena.

Dawn cast a rosy wash over the city’s walls, and a flash glittered from the distant silver cross atop the Torre del Mangia, which soared above the Piazza del Campo at the heart of the city. A coating of hoarfrost clung to Siena, roof tiles sparkled in the sun.

The artist’s hands ached, his freckled skin chapped raw. The scratchy wool wrap around his palms could not compete with the cold of the Tuscan winter.

He had risen in the dark to walk with his paints and easel through the lonely hills to this spot, this clump of oak trees in the shadow of Quattro Torra, a castle abandoned since the siege of Siena nearly two decades before.

He stood, brush in hand. Waiting for the dawn. Waiting for her.

He had painted her from a distance for a year now, the
pastorella
—the shepherdess—and her woolly charges. Virginia Tacci intrigued him, this skinny girl of six years.

His father, Cesare Brunelli, who knew everything there was to know about horses, said he recalled the day his best friend brought newborn Virginia to the stables.

He said all the horses stopped shuffling, eating, snorting. They lifted their heads, listening. “The silence was eerie,” Cesare said, “like before a great storm.”

That silence held until it was finally broken by the baby’s laugh.

“She has a gift. The horses are never wrong,” Cesare Brunelli said. “They recognize her spirit—a wild spirit like their own.”

It made the young artist feel an emotion akin to jealousy. A burning itch to capture her. He felt the urge to dig in his nails, bright with color, to scratch her form on canvas.

But she’s a girl. And a shepherdess. What good will it do her, this wild spirit?

His father’s words resonated in the artist’s mind. The young man would paint her, over and over, from every angle.

The sound of baying hounds broke into his thoughts. His eyes searched the rolling hills, blinking back tears against the cold wind.

Four velvet-cloaked riders paused on the crest of the hill, its grass bleached to straw by the Tuscan sun. Three brothers and a sister, their horses liveried with the red ball of the de’ Medici, emblazoned on the cheekpieces and browbands of their bridles.

A cold-throated gust tore at the cloaks of the riders. The woman’s billowing skirts filled like sails in the wind.

Her chestnut horse spooked, taking a sidestep leap as swift as a thunderclap. Hooves smashed the frosted grass as the gelding spun around.

“Easy,
cavallo
,” the rider cooed as she gathered her skirts, tucking them tight between her leg and the saddle. She sat deep in the saddle, her heels stretching low into the stirrup irons. The horse snorted, his nostrils flared. White puffs lingered in the winter air.

Her lips curved into a smile at the horse’s excitement.

“This is why women should not hunt,” said her eldest brother, dismounting. He flung back his cloak angrily, his fingers counting the holes in his stirrup leathers. He adjusted his left stirrup slightly shorter.

“Where are the grooms?” he grumbled. The well-oiled leather snapped as he yanked down the stirrup. “The Granduca of Tuscany should never have to dismount except for the kill.”

“I commanded them to leave us in peace,” said his sister, Isabella. “How often can we speak without witnesses? I do not trust the stable servants. They are paid to carry our secrets to other courts.”

Granduca Francesco grunted as he finished with the stirrup. He straightened up and drew a silver flask from his riding jacket.

“That, unfortunately, is the truth.” He took a long draught of grappa, his eyes scanning the Senese countryside. “With Ercole Cortile’s spying and his wagging tongue, I’d wager the Duca di Ferrara knows the precise lacework of my mistress’s chemise.”

He offered the flask to his sister, his mouth twisted in a lascivious smirk.

Isabella shook her head, declining the grappa.

“Bianca Cappello’s chemise is silk,” she retorted, “studded with seed pearls. Everyone knows that, even in the streets of Florence.”

Francesco’s face darkened. But Isabella straightened her elegant back in the saddle and continued.

“Your Venetian mistress is fanatic about underclothes, Francesco. I wager she will ask to inherit my camisoles and underskirts when I die! And you are wrong about women and hunting,
fratello mio
. The lesson is that a woman should dress herself in breeches when riding, as men do. The horse is terrified of Florence’s fashions.”

The other two brothers laughed, their horses prancing in place.

The Granduca of Tuscany scowled up at his sister from the ground.

“Oh? Do you not agree, Francesco?” she said, casting an innocent look down at her eldest brother.

His dark eyes, inherited from their Spanish mother, Eleonora di Toledo, smoldered with rage.

“Give me the flask, Francesco. Mine is empty,” said Pietro, the youngest brother. As always, he seemed incapable of reading the emotions of others. He did not sense the growing fury of the grand duke.

“You drink too much,” snarled Francesco, gesturing at his brother with the flask, his fingers tightening. “Is this the way you comport yourself in Madrid? King Felipe and the Spanish Court must think our family drunkards.”

“And worse,” he almost added, for Pietro had strange ways about him. His brother’s hooded eyes and cruelty chilled Francesco’s blood. The witches of Fiesole had pronounced Pietro cursed by the devil himself.

“You may be the granduca,” said Isabella, turning her horse toward her brother, “but that does not give you the right to insult your own family!”

Francesco grabbed her horse’s bridle in his free hand. The horse jumped back, but he held tight. “If I am insulting my family, you, my dear
sorella
, come to mind first and foremost.”

“
Davvero
, dear brother?”

“Your immoral ways make tongues in Rome flicker like snakes’, threatening our alliances. A princess who rides like a man. A de’ Medici princess espoused to an Orsini and keeping intimate company with his cousin—”

“Paolo himself asked Troilo Orsini to watch over me in his absence—”

“How convenient!” called Pietro, from his horse. “A husband to name his own replacement in the marriage bed.”

“Shut up, Pietro!” said Isabella, turning in her saddle. “You are indeed a fool!”

She knew Pietro had suspicions about his own wife, their first cousin Leonora—concerns about his wife’s fidelity while he bedded the most common whores in Florence.

Isabella was glad he would be leaving early the next day. She could not bear the sight of him.

“You should live at your husband’s side as a good wife and mother,” snapped Francesco, still focused on his sister. “Not linger year after year in Florence.”

“I married the bastard,” snapped Isabella. “Is that not enough? De’ Medici blood is mixed with Orsini. Your Highness seizes my husband’s land to pay off his debts—my land, my children’s!”

“I never said he was not a fool. My concern is with the de’ Medici name, the de’ Medici fortunes.”

His hands loosened their grip on the bridle. Isabella’s horse backed away, rearing. She whispered comforting words, steadying the gelding.

Francesco turned, tipping the flask to his mouth. The grappa stung his wind-chapped lips. He winced, rubbing them with his gloved fingers.

“You ride like a
puttana,
sister, straddling the horse.”

“Francesco!” said Isabella.

“Serenissim
o
,”
interrupted the middle brother, silent until now. “May I remind you that as cardinal of the Holy Church, I cannot condone—”

“Stay out of this, Ferdinando! It was you who came to me, outraged at the salacious gossip and jeers in the streets of Rome! The Florentine cardinal has a whore for a sister. What chance do you have of becoming Pope with a sister like this?”

Ferdinando raised his chin, the muscles in his jaw tight.

Francesco stabbed a finger at his sister. “Why do you not use the saddle I gave you?”

“You jest! How could I jump fences sitting sideways? Or do you wish me to break my neck?”

The ensuing silence stretched out in an answer too clear to be mistaken. Finally he said, “Our cousin Catherine de’ Medici rides in a properly modest fashion, and she commands Europe’s respect as the queen of France.”

“Ha! You choose your model carelessly. Catherine despises you! She despises our alliance with Spain! And do you really want me to fashion myself after a woman whose husband lies in the arms of Diane de Poitiers—who does ride, I am told, very much astride. To King Henri’s delight.”

“Isabella!” said Francesco.

A hound bayed, catching the scent of prey. Isabella spurred her horse, plunging down the hill toward an enormous fallen tree trunk, her skirts flying back over the horse’s flanks.

And a young shepherdess forgot her flock of sheep for a moment as she stared, open-mouthed, at the woman and her horse, who seemed to fly over anything that barred their way.

C
HAPTER
3

Siena, Pugna Hills

J
ANUARY
1573

At age six, I was painfully thin—all angular bones and knobby knees, with shoulder blades sharp as knives under my skin, not unlike a newborn foal. My body did not thrive on the sheep broth, gristle, and rough bread that were all we had to eat, but it was not just my body that was undernourished. My spirit felt hunger more keenly than my belly. I was starved, loved too little by a childless aunt and a kind but weak-willed uncle.

“Zia Claudia!” I shouted, opening the door. A wake of dried leaves chased in after me in a gust of wind. “There was a beautiful woman on a mighty horse who jumped the old olive tree—”

“Close the door! You let out the warmth!” snapped Zia Claudia. “Sweep up these leaves this minute.”

“But Zia! I saw a woman astride a horse. A woman who could ride as well as any man!”

“Speak not one more word of horses or I will take a broom handle to you, I swear it,” said Zia Claudia.

I fell into silence. I knew Zia’s threat was not hollow.

“You are late. The beans need shelling,” she said.

My fingers, numb from the cold, fumbled over the yellowed bean pods. I dug my broken nails into the withered shells, stripping the beans from their casing.

I bent over the cast-iron pot, my loose hair obscuring my view of Zia Claudia, though I could smell her sheep scent and mean-woman sweat across the room.

“Virginia!” snapped my aunt, bent over the soup pot. “Keep your hair out of our food!” She strode toward me, her cracked leather shoes kicking against the hem of a soiled apron.

Zia Claudia drew a dirty piece of string from her apron pocket and wrapped it around my hair. Her sooty fingers yanked it tight.

“Ow!” I cried.

“Next time you will remember to tie back that mop yourself. I have no stomach for picking your long hairs out of my soup.”

She turned away, leaving the mutton stink in her wake, greasy and rancid. I continued stripping the beans from their hard yellow shells. They rattled into the cast-iron pot.

For comfort, I glanced up at a crude painting of Santa Caterina fastened to the wall. My mother had bought it in the markets of Siena just before I was born. It was my christening present, fitting for a child born in the Contrada del Drago.

Though I was a
villanella
—a country girl—my mother and father had sacrificed everything to make sure I was born in the Drago contrada with Santa Caterina as my patron saint. No one could take away that birthright.

Santa Caterina was my protector. I prayed every night for her intercession, telling her my secrets and fears. And I was quite sure she hated Zia Claudia of the muttony hands.

“And stop daydreaming!” my zia called across the room.

My uncle Giovanni stomped his boots on the threshold, and I smiled.

“A little kindness, Claudia,” he murmured.

“Kindness won’t get supper on the table,” Zia Claudia snapped. Her mouth puckered like a withered raisin. “It’s only the beans the soup lacks. And don’t encourage her daydreaming. Horses, horses, horses! As if we could even afford a lame donkey.”

I felt a twist inside my gut, as if she had punctured something.

Giovanni sat down in his chair near the hearth.

“What harm does it do?” he said.

“She is a shepherdess! She fills her head with notions of riding horses, as if she were a
signore
’s daughter! Your brother—”

“Claudia!” he said.

“Well, it is time she accepted her lot and gave thanks to God. And to us!” she snapped.

Giovanni stepped away from her sour breath, looking at me with sad puckers around his brown eyes.

“She is a lonely little girl, Claudia,” he whispered.

He looked over at me and said in a louder voice, “Virginia, when you finish shelling the beans, I will tell you more of your grandfather.”

Zia Claudia grumbled, clanging the wooden spoon against the soup pot.

“Yes, Zio!” I cried. Now my fingers flew. The rattle of dropping beans filled the smoky room.

The moment I gave Zia Claudia the pot of shelled beans, I begged my uncle to tell me the story of my ancestors and the siege of Siena. He smiled, stroking my hair.

“You want to hear about the horses, ciccia?”

“You spoil her,” said Zia Claudia, stirring the beans into the pot.

“She has been out alone with the ewes for five days and nights. She deserves the comfort of a tale, Claudia.”

“Not a long story, the soup will be ready soon.”

My uncle winked at our victory. I hugged him tight.

His hands patted my shoulder blades.

“So thin, Virginia,” he said, shaking his head. “You need to eat more.”

“She eats enough,” said my aunt. “She is strong enough to hold a ewe for milking. A shepherd’s life will give her the brawn she needs.”

My zio let a moment of silence pass before he began his story.

“Your grandfather was a skilled iron smith with the Senese cavalry under the command of Piero Strozzi, the most powerful enemy of the de’ Medici,” he began. “All the world was at war in those years. And the European powers eyed Siena like vultures above a bloody kill. The French were our defenders, but that only drew in their enemies: the Spanish, the Swiss, and the Habsburgs. Siena was a bright penny on the table, surrounded by snatching hands. Strozzi was a great general, and his cavalry needed good blacksmiths, like your grandfather Tacci.”

I knew this story by heart—but I still loved to hear my zio tell it over and over again.

“But Grandfather
rode
the horses, didn’t he?”

“Yes. Piero Strozzi needed cavalrymen. Strozzi did not care that Grandfather wasn’t a noble. Pounding iron had forged his muscles, making him strong. He could sit on a horse and wield a sword. Another mighty warrior to kill the de’ Medici.”

“He rode well!”

“He killed many a de’ Medici soldier; Spanish, too. His sword tasted their blood—”

Claudia called.

“Soup is ready
, subito
!”

“
S
ì, Zia,” I answered.

“But Zio,” I whispered. “How did the de’ Medici defeat Siena and our fierce warriors?”

“We could not defeat all Europe,” said my uncle, sighing, “and Duca Cosimo de’ Medici wanted Siena more than any prize on Earth.”

“La più bella!”
I sang the ancient Senese anthem “Per Forza o Per Amore.”
“Viva la nostra Siena, la più bella delle città!”

The most beautiful! Long live our Siena, the most beautiful city of all.

The song made any Senese’s eyes shine. Even a country peasant like my uncle. He nodded his head to the words.

“But how he made Siena suffer,” said Zio, rubbing his eye with a knuckle.

My uncle Giovanni was a good storyteller. I was as hungry for his tales as I was for hot broth after shepherding.

The siege of Siena was the most painful of his stories—the most painful story for any Senese. Now I needed to hear that story again, even as Zia Claudia tried to command us to come to the table.

“A year of siege,” my uncle intoned, recounting the story we both knew too well. “A year with no food from beyond the walls of the city. Many from the countryside risked their lives, running food to the walls at night for the city men to haul up in buckets. Many were slaughtered, their houses and fields burned for aiding the city. Inside the walls, the brave citizens weakened day by day until they were as weak as baby birds, straining their necks for food. They ate sawdust, rats—”

“Dogs?”

I ducked my head, my face hot with shame. I could not meet my uncle’s eyes. I knew they would be gleaming with tears. But I needed to see those tears. I lifted my eyes to his, drinking in his sorrow to match my own.

I knew too well that my great-grandmother had died of starvation in the siege of Siena, refusing to eat her pet dog. The mutt curled up and died at the foot of her pallet, a circle of fur and bones, within an hour of her passing.

Her daughter-in-law hurried past the corpse, snatching up the dog’s meager body. She stripped the fur and boiled the carcass for soup to save her starving children.

And with that terrible thought in our minds, Zia Claudia’s screeching shattered the story and brought us to the table.

Aunt Claudia’s cooking was invariable. The broth shone with a bubbling slick of grease, the beans shiny white pebbles beneath the gray scum. Wild garlic and dried parsley defeated some of the old mutton’s acrid taste, but the strong essence of our ancient flock still lingered on my tongue.

My belly growled for the repast, despite its grim look. Walking the Tuscan hills tending sheep in the raw cold of winter left me ravenous. For days at a time, I ate nothing but hard, stale bread with ewe’s cheese and greasy olives.

I lifted my wooden spoon to my mouth, my lips puckered to blow on the broth to cool it.

That is when I heard the dogs growl in their pens and, a moment later, a pounding on the door.

“Who knocks?”

“Open up, in the name of the Granduca of Tuscany.”

Giovanni slid open the iron bolt.

Two men dressed in chestnut woolen jackets and crimson velvet hats stood at the threshold. Their leather riding boots shone copper-bright against their woolen leggings.

“We have come to warn inhabitants of Vignano that the de’ Medici family are hunting these hills. Keep your dogs under control and your sheep in a tight flock, close to your sheds. Should you see the hunting party, keep out of their way under penalty of law.”

“Sì, signori.”

“Do nothing that might spoil their sport. Is that clear?”

“Yes, certainly.”

As he turned to leave, the huntsman called over his shoulder,
“Buon appetito.”

I saw him wrinkle his nose in disgust as the door shut.

“The de’ Medici! Here?” I gasped. “That is who I saw, the woman who jumped the fallen tree!”

“What?” said Zia. “Isabella de’ Medici? Why did you not tell me—”

“You should have seen her, Zio!” I said, ignoring Zia. “She plunged down the hill from Quattro Torra at breakneck speed. Then her horse lifted off the ground like a bird taking flight. Never have I—”

“Your flock might have frightened the horses!” said Zia Claudia, her hands flying to her face. “We would be held responsible if she had fallen. They would think nothing of confiscating our home, our flocks—”

Zio Giovanni tipped his bowl of soup to his lips. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve as he stood up and took his cloak from the peg by the door.

“Where are you going?” demanded Zia Claudia.

“To the lambing sheds,” he said. “I will need to make sure everything is in order for castration this week. And if the de’ Medici are in the western hills, we will need to move the flocks closer to the sheds, as the signori ordered.”

“I want to go, too!” I said, jumping up from the table. Secretly I hoped that Zio would stop by Smithy Brunelli’s stable, and I could pet the horses’ muzzles.

“No, it is getting cold and dark out. I will whistle for Franco and the boys to move down from the hills for the night. But after Sunday Mass tomorrow, you can help us herd the old ewes, Virginia. We will need another shepherd by evening after the tupping.”

He lit his lantern and closed the door behind him. My chin dropped to my chest in disappointment.

“Odio le pecore,”
I muttered. I hate the sheep.

I felt the sting of a slap.

“You! You ingrate! How dare you curse our sheep!”

Zia Claudia—her muttony breath hot in my ear—insisted I thank God for each blessed ewe that bleats, each ram that ruts.

“The flocks keep you alive,” she said, shaking her finger in my face. “They clothe you, give us their meat and milk.”

“I do not curse our sheep. It is just—”

“You think you are above shepherding,” said Zia. “Just like your good-for-nothing father, who brought pestilence into the House of Tacci.”

“That’s a lie!” I shouted.

“He brought killing sickness to this house,” she spat at me, her face an ugly mask of hatred.

I knew she was right. My father—then my mother—had died of the fever after his journey trading leather in Piombino, on the swampland coast near Pisa.

“Your dream-sick father, traveling so far from his God-given land. For what? To earn money to buy a horse.”

A horse?

“My father was going to . . . buy a
horse
?”

“Bringing home sickness instead. And ruin! He killed your mother with the swamp fever, and he nearly dragged you to the grave with him.”

A horse?
I felt the ghost of my father draw his arms tight around my shoulders.

For you, ciccia. A horse.

Then I smiled. My father wanted to buy me a horse! Zia Claudia had told me a secret I would never forget.