Devil's Lair (15 page)

He saw Nadja approach along
the wall. She sat down beside him. “I didn’t know you had children.”

“Four children by three
mothers in two cities,” he
said. He was
especially fond of Jacopo, who lived with his mother in the Florentine parish
of San Ambrogio. He wished he could see how the boy was faring. “I give them
money when I can. I have nothing to give them now.”

“Time.”

“Little enough of that. I
need to go to Naples.”

“To see this other woman?”
she asked. “You love her more than you love your children?”

“More than anything.”

“Do you write poems for
her?”

“All my poems are for her.”

“Is she married?”

“Dante was in love with a
married woman. Beatrice Portinari. After she died, he walked through Hell to
find her.”

“I asked about you, not
Dante.”

“Without Dante, I am
nothing.”

“What’s her name? This woman
you’re in love with?”

“Maria d’Aquino. Daughter of
King Robert.”

“A princess?”

He shook his head.
“Illegitimate. Like myself. The king married her off when she was fifteen.”

“And you slept with her?”

Giovanni let the question
hover. He rolled over on his side, showing her his back. “She sleeps with the
angels now.”

In the pine woods outside
Ravenna they turned off the main road and slept in a pilgrim’s cell at the
convent of San Stefano dell’Uliva, sharing their room with an old man whose
right foot had been amputated years before. He was traveling alone, by foot and
by crutch, to visit the tomb of Saint Anthony in Padua.

The next morning Giovanni
asked to see Sister Beatrice, who agreed to meet them in the afternoon at the
tomb of her father.

Dante’s sarcophagus lay in
the church of San Pier Maggiore. When the pilgrims entered they found the
basilica empty except for an old nun who stood near the poet’s garlanded tomb
reading some papers in her hands. She turned at the sound of visitors and
recognized Giovanni, who introduced Sister Beatrice to the others.

Handing the papers to
Giovanni, she said, “Read these and tell me what you think.”

He glance at them.
“Epitaphs?”

“Every poet in Italy has
written one. Except you.”

“I’ve written dozens.”

“Where are they?”

“Smoke and ashes.”

“I’ve been collecting these
for years,” she said. “When the new tomb is built, I will need to pick one for
the marble. I’d very much like your opinion.”

“Of course.” Giovanni
withdrew to a spot beneath a window, where the light was better.

William said, “I knew your
father,” and told her the story of Dante’s stay in Oxford.

Giovanni returned and handed
her one of the poems. “This one. From Bologna.”

She glanced at it. “Master
Giovanni del Virgilio. Yes. Petrarch was of the same opinion. Thank you.” She
tucked this and the others into one of her sleeves.

Giovanni asked, “Will you be
taking your father back to Florence?”

She answered him with
disdain. “They wouldn’t have him when he was alive.”

“The priors offered to end
his exile,” Giovanni said. “They begged for his return.”

“On what terms? That he
confess to barratry? Taking bribes? Stealing money? Selling offices? Who could
believe such calumny and lies? My father never did these things. The priors
tried to destroy him. They wanted him, yes. On his knees, they wanted him. Now
they want to shrine him in that wretched city? I say no. They cannot have him.
Florence tried to break him, but my father beat her like the whore she is. My
father beat them all. He will be remembered when Florence is dust and ashes and
salted earth.” She touched his tomb. “Poor father.
Requiescat in pace.
They will never have his bones.”

They crossed the
Bacchighlione River, entered Padua at the Santa Croce gate, and went to Saint
Anthony’s basilica to pay their respects to the holy relics before continuing
on. The Carrara family resided in the Reggia, next to the Duomo. Giovanni gave
his name to a guard, asked if Francesco Petrarch was within, and was soon met
by the majordomo.

“Who shall I say is
calling?”

“Giovanni Boccaccio.”

“The poet?”

“Yes.”

“Please, come inside.”

The majordomo asked them to
wait in the library, where Giovanni found copies of several books that he
himself had written:
Filostrato
,
Teseida
,
and
Amorous Fiammetta
.
He was showing these to Nadja when another man entered the room, a man in his
middle forties who wore a toga and a laurel crown.

“Which of you is Giovanni
Boccaccio?” Petrarch asked from the doorway.

“I am.”

Beaming a smile, Petrarch stepped
forward, clapped Giovanni on the shoulders, and kissed him on both cheeks.
“Welcome, old friend. I’ve met you many times by candlelight, in the quiet of
an evening. Now here you are. I know you well, and not all. You are truly a
gift to our language.”

Giovanni felt a blush.
“Whatever gifts I possess have come from you and Dante.” He introduced Petrarch
to the others.

The laureate shook Marco’s
hand. “A pleasure as always.”

“You know me?” Marco asked.

“Don’t I?”

William said, “Our friend
took a blow to the head. His past escapes him.”

“Interesting.”

“If you knew me before,”
Marco said, “I would be grateful for your recollections.”

“Perhaps I am mistaken. No
matter. You are certainly welcome here, Marco da Roma. Please, all of you, join
me for dinner. The day is dying and you must be famished.”

As he led them down the
hallway, Petrarch marveled aloud: “Boccaccio! In Padua! Today is a blessed
day.”

Petrarch regaled his guests
in the main hall. Servants tended table; musicians played; young girls danced. The
feast reminded Giovanni of Naples in the years before the pestilence.

The meal began with fresh
fruit and apple verjuice. The soup was a zanzarelli in the Roman style: eggs,
cheese, and breadcrumbs in a chicken broth spiced with saffron. Two servants poured
dark wine from the Carrara vineyards. Next came dollops of dressing on collops
of meat: quail and culver and leveret. This was followed by sugar-glazed
chicken, eel stuffed with dried figs, and almond milk. Giovanni, Marco, and
Nadja indulged themselves beyond all desire, but William resisted temptation,
turning most of it away.

Petrarch said, “You’ve
scarcely touched your food, Father.”

“Enough is as good as a
feast.”

“I will not have you starve
to death at my table. Even a mendicant must eat.”

“Thank you for your concern,
Francesco, but I assure you I am quite healthy. Young people often ask me how I
got to be so old. You know what I tell them?”

“That you’ve killed all your
enemies?”

“Prayer and fasting,” said
the friar. “Think only of God, and always leave the table a little hungry.”

Giovanni stood up from his
bench and called for a lyre. A musician offered up his instrument. Giovanni
tested the strings and found them satisfactory. Standing before the others, he
closed his eyes and sang “The Lay of Orpheus,” about a troubadour who descended
into Hell to rescue his lady love, only to lose her again.

After applause gave way to
silence, Petrarch suggested, “A tale, Boccaccio. Give us a story.”

“Give me a theme.”

“A love story,” Nadja said.

“Good versus evil,” said
William, “where the Devil is defeated.”

Giovanni said, “Perhaps I
can do both. Have you heard the one about putting the Devil back into Hell?”

Marco and Nadja said no.
Petrarch said nothing. William said, “I might have heard that one, but tell it
anyway.”

“Are you sure, Father?”
Giovanni asked.

“Yes, yes. The others should
hear it.”

“If you insist.”

“I do. As I recall, it’s a
very uplifting story.”

“It is indeed,” said the
poet, with a mischievous smile, and began:

In Barbary there once lived
a rich man who had a beautiful daughter, a simple-minded girl of fourteen. Her
name was Alibech. She was not a Christian, but she knew a Christian boy named
Neerbale, and she asked him how a person should serve God. He told her that the
ones who served God best were the hermits who renounced the world and went to
live in the desert.

The next morning, prompted
by nothing more than a young girl’s fancy, Alibech sneaked out of her father’s
house and went to visit the hermits in the Theban desert. Tired and hungry, she
came upon a small hut. In the doorway stood a holy man.

Alibech said, “Can you teach
me how to serve God?”

But the holy man, seeing
that she was pretty, was afraid to invite her in, lest the Devil tempt him. So
he gave her some dates to eat and some water to drink and sent her on her way.
She found a second hermit and got the same response. Then she came upon the
hovel of a third hermit, younger than the others. His name was Rustico.

“Can you teach me how to
serve God?” she asked.

Rustico saw that she was
very pretty, but thought he had a will of iron. So he invited her in. He asked
her to lie down on a bed of palm leaves, but when he saw her there, he knew he
was in trouble. She was so young and beautiful, and he had not seen a woman in
years. Casting aside his piety and his prayers, he meditated on the young
girl’s beauty. A wicked thought entered his head, and he wondered how to
approach the girl with his proposal. They talked awhile, and Rustico discovered
that Alibech had never slept with a man. She was even more innocent than she
seemed.
I’m in luck,
he thought, and he knew just how to trick her into granting his desires.

He began with a long sermon
about how the Devil was God’s greatest enemy. Then he explained that the best
way to serve God was to put the Devil back into Hell.

The girl asked how this was
done, and Rustico said, “Just do whatever I do.” Then he undressed until he was
completely naked. The girl followed his example.

Rustico sank to his knees,
as if in prayer, and told her to kneel facing him. In this posture, the girl’s
wonders were displayed to him in all their glory, which inflamed his desire and
brought about the resurrection of the flesh.

Alibech was amazed. “What is
that thing sticking out in front of you?”

Rustico said, “This is the
Devil I was telling you about.”

“Does he hurt you?” she
asked.

“Oh, yes. He torments me. I
cannot endure it.”

She said, “Thank God I have
no such Devil to torment me.”

“You have something else.”

“Oh? What is that?”

“You have Hell,” said
Rustico. “Take pity on me, O merciful child. Help me put the Devil back into
Hell. It will relieve my suffering and render great service unto God.”

“Oh, Father,” she said. “If
I really do have a Hell, then we should do as you say, as soon as you’re
ready.”

“I’m ready now,” said
Rustico.

He conveyed the girl to the
bed, where he tutored her in the art of incarcerating the accursed fiend. But
the young girl had never before put a Devil back into Hell, and found this
first experience a bit painful. She said, “The Devil is truly evil, Father. Not
only does he plague mankind, but he even hurts Hell when he is forced back
inside.”

“It will not always be like
that,” Rustico assured her, and to prove it they put the Devil back into Hell a
dozen times that night, curbing his arrogance so completely that the Devil did
not rise again for the rest of the day.

Later, however, the Devil’s
pride reared its head repeatedly, and the girl said to Rustico, “Now I know
what Christians mean when they say that serving God is so enjoyable. I’ve never
done anything that gave me so much pleasure as putting the Devil back into
Hell. It seems to me that anyone who does anything but serve God is an idiot.”

After that, she went to
Rustico many times a day, saying, “Father, I came here to serve God, not waste
my time. Let’s go put the Devil back into Hell.”

But by constantly calling
Rustico to his Godly service, the girl took so much out of him that he began to
turn cold where another man would be hot, so Rustico told her that the Devil
should only be put back into Hell when he raised his head with pride. In fact,
said Rustico, they had tamed the Devil so well that he was now pleading with
God to be left in peace.

This did not satisfy the
girl for long.