The Botticelli Secret

48

Brother Guido met us at the palace doors with great relief, matched only by my own—for once the plot had been revealed to the Genoese, a Pisan in soldiers’ garb with a war horse could be executed as an enemy outrider. The doge did not question Brother Guido’s presence once he was identified as our friend; I think he soon realized that there were very strange alliances on both sides of this battle. The doge’s grooms brought his horse, and a white charger and a black one sped us to the lighthouse. It was not until we left the tall and narrow sheltering streets that we realized quite how heavily it was raining. I pitied both armies, floundering in a muddy mountain battle-field, and for the first time thought about my mother. Would she survive the night to come? I felt no pity though—that I reserved for the mothers’ sons that fought for their families, or the city that they loved, or even a weekly purse: all more honest motives than hers.

Now it was fully dark, and the lanterna burned bright at the top of the faro, guiding the enemy fleets close. We skidded to a stop at the harbor, and Signor Cristoforo slid off at once, bellowing for Bartolomeo, running to help with the muster. We both dismounted and Brother Guido took my arms, yelled in my ear against the hashing rain. “Take the doge into the lighthouse, he will be safe. It is guarded by the Genoese militia, with lookouts posted. Signor Cristoforo says there is a chamber in the first terraza.”

“And I?”

“Go to the second terraza, and douse the lantern. It must be completely out, Luciana, so do this one last thing, and do not fail in it.”

I clung to his sodden cloak. His hair was plastered into black slabs which fell across his blue eyes like prison bars. “Where are you going?”

“I must take the horse to the westward cliffs and kindle a fire,” he bawled. “We need a beacon of gorze and heather to burn at Pegli and divert the ships.” He looked to the skies. “ ‘Twill not be easy in this rain, but it must be done.”

Still I clung like a monkey. “Cannot someone else go?”

“No.” He shook his head and the raindrops flew. “Signor Cristoforo is mustering the fleet, and the duke must be kept safe within. This is the fastest horse in the city, and as I am no swimmer, I must serve on land not water. Let me go to my task and do you go to yours.” He looked me straight in the eye. “You may pray for me though.”

The raindrops were my tears—

I felt that I was saying goodbye.

“I thought you had done with God.” I choked.

“I did have done with God, but he had not done with me.”

I looked back at him, and he smiled his sunburst smile, the old Brother Guido, with the light of faith in his eyes behind the blue.

“Then you’ll go back? When all this is over?” I needed to look beyond this night, needed to know there may be a time when I could visit him at Santa Croce. Just to know he was alive would be enough for me now.

“To the monastery? No.”

“But . . .”

He held my face in both his hands. “I could never go back. Not because I don’t love God. But because I do love you.” He kissed me once then, hard, his lips freezing without and warm within, moving across my cheek and to my ear. “Love is when you like someone so much you have to call it something else,” he whispered. And was gone.

Joy and sadness rushed in upon me: joy that he loved me but tempered with an unshakable feeling that I had touched him for the last time. Stricken, both with bliss and loss, I stumbled to the lighthouse with the doge in tow. The door was guarded by two militiamen with the crosses of Genoa on their chests. Their pikes sprang apart at a nod from the doge, allowing us inside without question. My skin began to prickle with foreboding, images nudging my dull brain as I climbed—one guard had had a sleeve so long that it flapped over his hand, another so short that a white circle of wrist showed above the hand that grasped the pike. Something was wrong.

Once within, the howling wind, the driving rain, and the crashing waves ceased—the walls so thick as to block out the tempest. The only sound as we climbed was our breathing and the clanking of the doge’s armor. I could see the glow of candlelight spilling down the steps even before the last turn of the stair. I knew who would be there in the chamber, unable to stay away, watching from the window as the grand scheme played out.

We entered the square room. Empty save for one figure at the window, clad in magnificent purple velvet and gold brocade, looking out to sea as the day bruised to the first of night. He turned at our steps.

Lorenzo de’ Medici.