The Botticelli Secret

17

I woke to the sound of retching and the sickly sweet smell of vomit. Brother Guido was hunched in the corner, doubled up as he expelled his insides. In the pewter light of dawn I could see his matching gray pallor. Concern overrode my disgust and I jumped to my feet.

“Shit. Are you all right?”

“Fine.” He waved me away, clearly shamed of his state. “ ‘Tis the seasickness.” He spat neatly once more, then as is often the case after a bout of vomiting, he clearly felt instantly better. “My cousin Niccolò used to tease me about it mercilessly when we were children.” He gave a weak smile. “It was a great joke to him that the heir of a maritime state could not countenance a rough sea.”

“But you were fine yesterday.”

“Did you not hear me?” he said. “A rough sea. The waters are different today, the wind is up, the ship pitches and rolls.”

He was right. I could not have approached him even if I had wanted to, for when I tried to walk, the floor lurched and I lurched with it, as if jugbitten. I smiled, enjoying the game. And presently got the hang of it. “Look!” I cried, dancing about the tipsy hold. “I have my sea legs!”

Brother Guido regarded me balefully as he crept along the wall and sank to his haunches far from his leavings. “You’re very cheerful. Let us hope it does not get worse.”

“Worse?” I was happy and confident as I knew this was our last day on board. “It’s only a squall, surely.”

He rolled his eyes in sockets hollow from his travail. He had almost a full dark beard, and his pallor and weight loss made him look much more like a religious ascetic than an angel. “I suppose so. In fact, the waters around the straits of Naples are notoriously rough, as the currents of the seven seas converge as you round the sheltered edge of the peninsula. I did not mention it, thinking it would fright you, but you are finding out for yourself.” He sighed. “At least we will get there faster, as we are being blown into port like an acorn on a millpond. It’s a following wind.”

“There you are then!” I crowed. “We must ride it out as best we can, and then the time will come to leave this accursed ship and the bastard rats that sail it. Depend upon it—tomorrow night we’ll be in silken sheets in the palace of Don Ferrente.” I skipped across the planks and patted his shoulder. “Take heart.” I used a phrase of his own. “Perhaps I am showing you my true Venetian colors, for they say each Venetian is born in a storm, and therefore we must have the best seafaring stomachs of all.” I was cock-a-hoop, the dangers of the crew above and the city before me forgotten. I just wanted off this fucking boat.

An hour later I desired it even more. Brother Guido and I were rolling about like peas on a drum as the ship pitched alarmingly. Each time we rolled under the grille we were doused with a briny splash of seawater which stung the eyes and stole the breath. We were both vomiting copiously, I even more than he; I made no more boasts about being a sea-hardy Venetian. We could no longer puke neatly in the corner, but threw up everywhere, over each other and ourselves, with only the sea-water to cleanse our misery and shame. We were bruised and aching, thrown from fore to aft, from larboard to starboard. Presently, horrifyingly, the hold began to fill with water to our ankles, then our waists. I knew not what would happen if the merciless brine soaked the painting, but could no longer care. With the storm bellowing outside, we could neither speak nor hear. Soaked and shivering, Brother Guido and I clung together like souls in hell. All shame disregarded, all differences forgot, ‘twas as if we were one person. I knew I would die that same hour, but that I would not die alone. Born in a storm, I kept thinking. Venetians are born in a storm. Born in a storm, died in a storm, the circle complete. The water rose more and Brother Guido began to pray—but as the cold sea seeped up to my bodice, his eyes flew open. He gave a cry; the screeching winds and falling torrent made him mute, but I could see by the shape his lips made that he had said the name of the Primavera! I no longer cared for the painting that had brought us to this pass, but I cared for him. For his sake, with chilled fingers I fumbled with my bodice and took out the waxed roll, held it high above the roaring torrent. He looked desperately around for a way to salvage the parchment, and the answer floated up past his chest—the goatskin gourd. Dextrously he rerolled the parchment, small enough to push through the neck of the gourd, and shoved in the wax cap tight. Then, being the taller, he wound the gourd’s leather strap around his neck and hung the goatskin around the back in his cowl. I knew as well as he did that if the water reached there we were dead anyway.

But soon our relative heights ceased to matter as we began to float then, our feet leaving the floor, higher and higher. Or did the ship sink lower and lower? I could no longer tell. I had no rudder, no compass, no longer knew starboard from lar-board or up from down. I feared for my friend as his brown fustian habit accepted the weight of the water, turning black and heavy, all but dragging him down. But soon our heads were pressed against the grille, the waters rising still as we gasped for air. The painting would be saved, but we would not; we were rats in a trap. Our faces were crushed by the cold iron of the grille and the warm flesh of each other. In my last act, I pressed my chilled lips to Brother Guido’s because I did not want to die without showing him I loved him.

At that moment three things happened at once.

Cosa Uno: the freezing iron lifted away from our faces as the grille was raised.

Cosa Due: unseen hands hauled us to the storm-battered deck.

Cosa Tre: Brother Guido della Torre kissed me back. Hard.

Before I had time to countenance this triple miracle, I was being dragged forward, downward, I knew not where. I held on to Brother Guido, unable to open my eyes against the lashing sea spray. I felt myself being lowered over the side of the ship—surely we were not to swim for our lives! But no, my numbed feet felt the bottom of a craft. The sinking ship, doomed on its maiden voyage, protected us from the bite of the wind and spray, and I could see that I was now in a curracle with Brother Guido and the Capitano. All other souls, it seemed, were doomed, and so were we if we set forth bounded in this nutshell of a boat. But the menfolk took two oars and pulled away from the wreck, myself crouching like a figurehead in the prow of the curracle. As we pushed forth, we left the lee of the ship and I looked the storm in the eye. Madonna. My hair whipped around my frozen face like Medusa’s snakes, whispering saltily with the brine that rimed my locks. I could see with brief sharp pride that Brother Guido pulled the oar strongly and competently to match the Capitano’s stroke, and reflected that even the worst Pisan sailor must be better than the best of other men. I held on to the boat’s sides till my muscles cracked, as we rose to the top of waves high as dark mountains, then sank down again, lurching into the inky depths like damned souls falling into the chasm. Lightning ripped the sky, as if a black arras were being rent to reveal a heaven of silver; paradise was glimpsed in an instant and then snatched away from us. The wind stung my face so I turned back, just in time to see the flagship of the Muda being swallowed by the sea, the masts sinking at the last till the Pisan pennant fluttered for the final time and was gone.

Exhausted, I curled up in the bottom of the boat, not caring what happened now. The spray and the cold stole my consciousness away, and I passed out, with Brother Guido’s kiss still printed on my lips.

Woke to a warm sun, a glassy sea reflecting the blue sky like a mirror. All around the boat were ships’ planks smashed to matchwood, and clothing curling and floating in the water like a laundry.

My oarsmen were both prone in their seats. For the second time in a day’s span I feared that my friend was lifeless. My heart quickened—no, Brother Guido lifted a hand to swat away an errant fly, then settled down again. Asleep. Exhausted. The Capitano, on the other hand, lay with his bloody mouth open, showing neither breath nor life.

Well.

That is how Principessa Chi-chi arrived in state to the southern kingdoms. Marooned in a curracle, with two unconscious men. Both bearded and battered and bruised and bloody. One as ugly as all seven sins, and dead as a Friday fish. The other as beautiful as the dawn and gloriously alive. As if the deceased Capitano had considered my wishes, my left foot was bound to Brother Guido’s right with a cuff-and-chain arrangement. I thought of searching our captor’s corpse for the key, but the thing caused me no discomfort, and I’d really rather not do an unpleasant job when I could wait for my friend to wake and get him to do it. I gazed on Brother Guido’s sleeping face and drank in his beauty, the memory of the night before beating in my temples and throat. I noticed, as an afterthought, that the gourd with the Primavera cartone in it still hung safely round his neck, but I wasn’t even sure I cared. Perhaps after last night we could forget the whole puzzle and settle down here where no one knew us, drink wine and eat olives and raise beautiful children. I gazed on their father’s face and enjoyed my fantasy.

At length I looked forward from the prow and saw a sight that pleased me almost as much. Curved and glittering as a necklace cast onto the sands was a perfect crescent of a bay. Above it sat a glowering blue mountain which smoked a little from its peak as if it were a new-made dish pulled lately from the oven. Little white houses huddled on the beach like pearls, and farther up the slopes, great palaces studded the hillsides like rubies.

“Naples,” said a voice from behind me.

Not Brother Guido’s voice. A voice of brine and barnacles.

Shit.

The Capitano was alive.