The Madonna of the Almonds (13 page)

Simonetta’s senses failed her.

She could hear the words of the mass being intoned but she barely heard what was said. She barely saw the Cardinal and his entourage as they made their jewel-encrusted progress up the nave. She could not smell the incense nor taste the moon-white Host as it was pressed to her tongue. She could not raise her eyes from the cup as she tasted the blood of Christ at the altar. She could still feel though, oh yes. She was not spared those sensations. The imprint of Bernardino’s hot mouth on hers lay on her lips like the bruise of red wine. She raised her long fingers to her mouth to wipe him away, to erase the stain of treachery. She was bowed under by shame.

She had come here to pray, for her sins were great. How could she have let him kiss her – on the very steps where she had pledged her troth to Lorenzo? The remembrance that he had kissed her first was no comfort – she could not forget that her lips had opened under his, that their tongues
had touched, that she had sunk into his embrace. She had held him hard and gratefully, feeling happiness that she had forgotten. Not even that – happiness which, if she was honest with herself, she knew she had never had. This realisation had made her break away at last. She had run from him then, sobbing, and would not go back. She had pushed past a figure in the doorway, but had not seen the worshipper’s face, blinded as she was by tears of mortification. Bernardino had followed her but she had ridden fast, heedless of the icy paths that threatened the legs of her horse. The snow flew in her face but could not cool the burning blush of her cheeks.

Simonetta spent a long sleepless night of tears and regret, but reached a decision as dawn greyed the skies. She knew he would seek her out, and that she would not have the strength to send him away. So she must go to the church again, in the safety of numbers, to brave him one last time, and tell him that they could not be together. The notions of seeing him again and never seeing him again were equally painful. And to sit here, now, in the world of colour and holiness that he had created for the church, was torture indeed. To bear witness to his miraculous talent, and to know such a man wanted her, was almost more than she could bear. A huge reliquary had been placed before the figure of the Madonna – her figure – by the tactful Anselmo, who knew not of the incident but just that the Virgin was not finished. Behind the monstrance which held a fragment of
the True Cross, sat the Queen of Heaven without a face. Anselmo thought that only three people would know of this fact, but in fact there were four. Simonetta shivered. She knew that Bernardino was at the back of the church, prowling like a cur. She could feel his eyes on her, and tears burned her throat.

He moved from one side of the apse to the other switching back and back on himself as a wolf weaves in a figure of eight. He was more than usually anxious for the mass to end. He
must
speak to her. He was consumed by impatience but also joy and anticipation. She
must
know, as he now knew, that she loved him. The kiss had told him, it had told both of them.
Now
he had found the centre of his life. His ills were healed. The discordant note that had sounded in his heart had found its true cadence and sounded a sweet chord in his soul. His head was full of poetry; his body was full of heat. He could not wait to possess her – all must give way before their love. Not for Bernardino the troubadour’s notion of courtly love; all sighings and moanings in vain for a distant lady-love who could never be truly possessed. Simonetta’s distress, her scruples, her husband and her God could be nothing to them. They would live as in the old days in the old ways, when the pagans could not hear the songs of Holy choirs but only the thrumming of their blood. There was no heaven to hope for, no afterlife. Heaven was here, and when they died their bones would be
dust to lie together in the earth for eternity.

He could see her now – he would know her anywhere. She sat in the crowd next to that maid of hers, her head bowed under a hood. But he recognised so well how fabric fell across her body and the angle of her head, that he knew her at once. She would not look at him, but if he could but speak to her, and hold her again, he knew all would be well.

Raffaella looked at her mistress. She did not know what ailed her, but perhaps it was the same malaise that beset Gregorio. She knew they had both felt deeply for the day of Lorenzo’s death, but she had seen such fresh outpourings of grief that it were as if the event had just occurred. All of last night her lady had wept over the candles of her lord’s wake, but Gregorio’s response was stranger still, for he had not attended the wake at all. He had come in at dawn, stinking from the alehouse, his eyes red with tears and wine. He had given no apology to their lady, but a look of such venom that she could not have failed to see it. He had ever been a respectful squire, and Raffaella was perplexed, but she had been forced to stay her enquiries as he had fallen into a deep slumber, and she and a silent mistress had had to ready themselves for church. Raffaella supposed that the mystery would be solved after mass. She followed her lady back to their seats after the taking of the sacrament, and scanned the faithful for a shamefaced Gregorio. But he had not come. She supposed that he was still sleeping off the wine, and
would not appear at mass. But she was wrong.

While all were silent in prayer in thanks for the Host, the doors opened and heads turned to see Gregorio himself staggering into the church. He weaved his way up the nave as all turned to gaze at him. Bernardino stopped in his tracks with a dreadful foreboding, for he saw here the man that had come into church last night. The man that both he and Simonetta had passed at the door, her to flee and he to chase her.

The Cardinal, straining to read his texts, continued to intone the
Ave Maria
with his eyes on the Book of Books. But as he named the Holy Virgin Gregorio began to laugh, a manic horrible sound, and the Cardinal himself stopped. He fixed the intruder with a freezing gaze and motioned to his hidden guards. They moved as one from behind the twin pillars of the rood screen and advanced to take the intruder. They took an arm apiece and pulled him to the door as Raffaella gasped in anguish. But the nave was long, and Gregorio had plenty of time to say what he wanted to say.

‘The Queen of Heaven indeed. But did you know, your Eminence, that the model for the
Virgin
,’ he spat the word, ‘is not Mary Mother of God,’ he crossed himself clumsily, ‘but Mary Magdalene, the first among
whores
.’ Bernardino moved then, quick as a cat. He did not know whether to strike the squire down or attempt to silence with him, but was stopped in his tracks. ‘And here is her seducer,’ crowed
Gregorio. ‘Your genius, the great Bernardino Luini.’ Gregorio had learned all that he had to of Luini in the tavern last night, and despised what he heard. His drunken invective came back to him and flowed long. ‘How can a man live like this, painting pretty pictures, seducing the wives of good soldiers; a man that has never seen a battlefield or felt neither the handle of a sword nor the point as it enters his flesh. And here they hide, kissing and cooing like doves in the house of
God
. I spit on you both.’ He suited the action to the words, but his thick phlegm dribbled down his contorted face, to be joined by tears. ‘How could you, my Lady?’ he appealed directly to Simonetta, his voice thick with sorrow and drink. She met his eyes, but looked away at once, appalled by the pain she saw there. ‘You were wed here! Wed! And to a man worth a thousand of him. A man that fought and died for us all. Like Christ! Yes, like Christ himself!’ Gregorio’s voice grew loud again as his confused thoughts took shape, and the parallels burst in upon him like a lightning strike. ‘Christ who died on the cross, and his cross now hides their shame.’ With a new zeal he broke free and leapt for the reliquary. Before he could be stopped he knocked it to the ground to reveal the faceless Virgin at the heart of the Adoration of the Magi. The monstrance rolled away, the ruby panes held the fragment of wood safe within, but the crash sounded into the silence. Gregorio was quickly recaptured but shouted above the melee. ‘Aye, there she sits. But she is not finished, no; for they were too
busy in their bodily pleasures to think of Heaven.’

The crowd looked on, shocked by such iconoclasm. They stared at the unfinished Madonna and back at the lady of Saronno. Bernardino had stopped in his tracks, and Simonetta stood, stony and still as a pillar. Gregorio’s maudlin appeal to her, his tears, had affected her more than his anger; more than the falling of the reliquary, more than the revealing of the incomplete fresco. She could not fault him; he was right, and far more loyal than she.

The squire had done at last; he slumped and sobbed, docile now as the guards recaptured him and bundled him outside. Simonetta and Bernardino were suddenly the only two standing in the church. They gazed at each other over desert wastes, parted forever now. She lowered her eyes and sank to her seat, dry eyed and utterly defeated as the hubbub around her grew. The eyes were arrowshafts, the words were barbs to her flesh and she knew she deserved every one. Bernardino stood now alone, filled with horror that the new and tender shoots of their love had suffered the killing frosts of scandal before they had had chance to grow. The world’s eyes were upon them, judging them, weighing their worth with grubby fingers and finding them wanting.

The Cardinal in his ceremonial chair gazed on them both, his eyes limpid, pale and dangerous. He could not countenance what he had heard and seen; he knew only that disrespect, the heresy and licentiousness had entered God’s
house, and besmirched the frescoes that he had planned and paid for. Now the miraculous paintings were darkened in his eyes. He did not see the Saints or angels, just the ugly expressions of sin writ large on their faces. He looked at the pair before him and saw the same sins written there. The moment was broken as the guards re-entered, and the Cardinal spoke these words; the first that he had uttered without Latin, in Milanese so all could understand.

‘Arrest him.’

‘Will they arrest him?’ Amaria’s firelit face was lively with concern.

‘Who? The
Comune
of Pavia arrest Selvaggio?’ asked Nonna. ‘Never. The Swiss have no friends here, no one will miss them. No one loves a mercenary. Their families are far away in Swisserland. The bodies will have gone, never to be found. The citizens of Pavia may be cowardly, but they are quick to clean up their affairs after the fact. All will be dispatched, swift and secret. There has been discontent brewing about the ways of the Swiss for long enow. This will serve them well.’

Selvaggio was silent as he sat before the fire, rubbing his sword hand where it had rung like a bell with the blows. Three blows, three dead, and three days had passed. Days which Selvaggio and Amaria had spent shuttered in the house, abandoning their customary walks, much to Nonna’s surprise. Finally they had confided in the old lady, in an attempt to end Amaria’s constant agony that each moment
would bring the constables to their wooden door. The Swiss sword, witness to all, had come home with them. Selvaggio, in a gesture he did not know for his own, had sheathed it in his belt, to guard against further challenges on the road home. He would bury it later, but for now it stood in the corner of the hearth. Set into the handle, winking reproachfully in the firelight was the charm of Saint Maurice, the martyr of the Theban legion. The Swiss kept his medals close and trusted in his protection. But that day, Saint Ambrose had prevailed. In Selvaggio’s head the Saints had fought and Saint Maurice had lost. Saint Ambrose had protected his own on his day, that shining girl who shared his name. Selvaggio looked at Amaria where she sat in the only chair, warming herself by the fire. Nonna had wrapped a sheepskin round her shivering granddaughter and given her a cup of broth. She was shocked beyond measure at what she had been told, but Selvaggio’s rescue of Amaria warmed her so completely that she had no need of the fire. Yet Amaria’s teeth still chattered like a monkey and her hands still shook till the wooden bowl clacked against her teeth. Selvaggio took both her hands in his, warming them round the bowl.

‘’Tis done,’ he stammered. ‘They are gone, and cannot hurt you.’

Amaria did not say what she feared. For though she had thrilled at his action and strength to save her, she feared that Selvaggio, her dear kind Selvaggio that would not hurt a flea, had gone too.

As Gregorio had rightly said, Bernardino was no soldier. He ran. Had he had time to reflect, he might have been amused by the ironic twist of his fate, for here he was, twenty years on, running once again from a brace of liveried guards in the cause of the virtue of a woman. But he had never felt less like laughing in his life; he had, it seemed, lost his love – he wasn’t about to lose his liberty too.

His way to the church door was guarded, and so, with no clear idea why, he headed for the side door into the bell tower – his bell tower – and swarmed up the stair and the rope ladder like a ship’s monkey. He knew the way well, through the darkness and the ropes and the menacing sweet whisper of the bells. He climbed at last to his chamber where he had slept these long months. He could not hear them following. They were heavier men than he, and armed, but they would find him eventually. He was a rat in a trap. Then he understood. They were not coming. The Cardinal had a much more effective way of getting him down.

Bernardino watched in soundless horror as he saw the bell ropes pull tight and the massive bells creak upwards, mocking him with their open black mouths. He covered his ears just before their great tongues fell, but still the sound hit his body like a blow fit to stop his heart. He screamed then, but could not hear himself. Desperately, as the twin giants bawled again and again he looked from the four arched windows and faced the four winds which forced him back inside with freezing gusts. He could see nothing of what lay below as the winter’s breath and the unbearable song of the bells brought tears to his eyes. His ears and nose wept blood in sympathy. He knew he must get away before he ran mad, but could not climb back down into the lion’s jaws. In the end he headed for the north window – for north was where Lake Maggiore lay – and plunged out and down into the night as the stars fell away.

Landed with a crunch, laid winded, but the branches of a friendly tree lay under his back and told him that his fall had been broken. He could not rise alone, but he had help. A dark figure loomed, stooped. Bernardino took the proffered hand and was hauled to his feet.

‘Can you walk?’ was the urgent whisper.

‘Yes.’

‘Run?’

‘I think so.’

‘Then do it. Follow me.’

Along narrowed streets and through close alleys he followed
the bearlike figure. Bernardino’s muscles cracked and his ribs pained him. The snow stung the leaf cuts of his face, and he could taste the blood the bells had drawn from his nose. Perhaps he ran straight into the jaws of a trap, but he cared not – anything would be better than the thugs of a merciless Cardinal.

At length they arrived at a door, a knock was given and his saviour turned to go. Bernardino’s memory struck a familiar note. Once, at a different door, he had done as much for a small boy who needed him. The thought made him hold the other’s arm as he made to vanish into the night. His rescuer turned back and silver eyes flashed from beneath the cowl.

‘Where are we?’ Bernardino mumbled through the blood.

‘At the house of the priest. He is your friend I think?’

‘Why do you do this?’

‘Because if you help me and mine, you too shall be helped.’

With this enigmatic answer Bernardino’s rescuer was gone. The door opened, and Bernardino fell through it, into the arms of Father Anselmo’s tiring woman. The motherly soul clucked over him, for Bernardino was known to her through his friendship with her Master. Bernardino, dazed by events, could not answer her questions. Perhaps the fall had addled his head, for he could have sworn that the hand that had hauled him to his feet was made of gold.