Page 18 of The Stone Witch of Florence

SEVENTEEN

LUCIA, TORN APART

July 7th of 1348, City of Florence, the Palazzo Tornaparte

L ucia awoke, alone in her room. A sinking sun cast long shadows through her narrow window, shutters open to the outside for the first time in many weeks. She wondered if she was dead, but if that were so, she’d be in hell since nobody had heard her last confession, and surely hell would be worse than her own empty room. Slowly, her brain separated the weird fever dreams from reality. She remembered her husband’s cruel departure and her wordless promise, made earlier that afternoon, to a woman who listened to goats. Was that stranger still in her house? She touched her throat. The hated swellings were gone.

She found she had strength to prop up onto her elbows, and noticed several pleasant changes had occurred while she slept. Most obviously, the body of her maid and bucket of vomit were gone. Poor Antonella! She was a hopeless cook and a worse maid, but she had been kind and well-meaning. Lucia looked down and saw she was sleeping in her wedding sheets.

“Monna Lucia! It is so pleasant to see you awake.”

It was the stranger—Ginevra?—back with a brew that smelled of honey and rosemary. “How is your throat? Do you find it comfortable to speak?”

Lucia gave it a try: “Ahemmm. Hmm. I... Yes...yes, I do.”

“Good. The stones worked perfectly. I wasn’t sure they would, but either way, since I have saved your life, I am bound to you as your devoted friend. You must tell me everything about yourself and how you came to be a lady in charge of her own palazzo.”

Everything was so strange that Lucia did not know what to do besides agree, and found herself telling a very personal story to a woman she did not know, who was sitting on her bed.

When the pestilence first arrived, Lucia was invited to go with a group of friends to their country home, but her husband would not allow it, preferring her to stay with him as he kept an eye on business affairs. So, Lucia resigned herself to some boring weeks while she waited for the disease to pass.

As was not uncommon in her social class, Lucia’s husband was some twenty years her senior. But since she was only sixteen at the time of their betrothal, he was not yet such an old man as to be completely unpleasing. He was born very poor in the country, but through luck and scheming, had become so rich that nobody cared he was born to farmers who lived in the dirt.

Lucia descended from a noble clan; however, her family had become impoverished when her father, accused of supporting the wrong political faction, was beheaded by the Signoria. But the merchant was in no need of money, and what Lucia lacked in dowry she offered in her youth and impressive lineage, so the thing was arranged.

Lucia was excited for her wedding to the rich merchant. She was brought up her whole life for this purpose, and selecting items for the trousseau became a passion. Her gown was crimson silk embroidered with gold (103 florins). Around her waist, a silver girdle with enameled scenes of Tristan and Isolde (20 florins), and on her head a jeweled brooch (also 20 florins). She also ordered five other fine gowns (one of white brocade with a long train, one of rose-colored silk, one lined with cat fur, one of embroidered taffeta, and one of forest green with long sleeves), eight plain gowns for daily wear, twenty shifts of gauzy linen, and the aforementioned bedclothes (now ruined). The marriage feast was as magnificent as Lucia’s wardrobe. To feed the multitude of guests, the merchant ordered 406 loaves of bread, 250 eggs, one hundred pounds of cheese, half an ox, four sheep, thirty-seven capons, eleven chickens, and a number of seabirds, along with eight barrels of fine Proven?al wine and two dozen more of cheap Tuscan Chianti. Lucia touched none of the food herself, of course. It was gauche for a bride to eat at her own wedding.

Ginevra yawned a little at this point and Lucia realized she ought to move on from the details of her nuptials.

The marriage started out pleasantly enough. The merchant was eager to impress his bride with a lavish lifestyle, depositing her in the fine palazzo where they now sat. But, after several months went by and Lucia was not pregnant, the merchant became frustrated. He knew the issue was not his, on account of all the bastard children he paid for, and informed Lucia so.

She wished for children as strongly as her husband, and purchased an ointment that was guaranteed to result in a pregnancy. But it smelled so terribly that the merchant refused to come near her and made her throw it out, so she never found out if it worked. The months became a year, and the merchant grew bitter. Lucia was a bad investment, but he couldn’t extricate himself from the situation as he would have normally. He also informed Lucia of this fact. No longer did he have a kind word or loving touch, but criticized her every movement.

This imperfect domestic life was further exacerbated by the departure and deaths of the household servants as the pestilence took hold. Lucia tried to ingratiate herself to her husband by taking charge, but really she had not much experience in running a household. She was used to telling her wishes to her maid and having them carried out. So their grand palazzo quickly became disheveled. Lucia’s one small victory was in securing Antonella, who was available only because she was too poor to flee the disease. She was untrained, however, and did not do much to improve the general order and appearance of things.

With her home such a miserable place, and her hired help so unhelpful, Lucia, for the first time in her life, began to personally run errands and pick up food. Her husband would not have approved, but he stayed shut up in his studio all day, working and reworking figures, writing correspondence nobody would read, looking for the magical calculation that would leave his wealth intact even when every single one of his clients had closed their own shops.

In normal times, when Lucia went out, it was always with a companion. But now nobody stared if she was alone. Nobody cared what anybody did, really, so long as they kept their distance. For the first time, she walked without worrying if she was too fast or too slow, and could choose the route she liked best. She had always loved the streets of Florence, many just wide enough to fit a man’s shoulders. The city felt close and safe to her, the high exterior walls impenetrable to enemies, the gates a welcome port for friends.

But soon the food vendors vanished, and in their stead flagellanti wandered the barren markets, beating their backs raw and screeching at the sky. Then even they left. The friendly streets became dikes through a fetid swamp, their narrowness and crookedness holding the putrid air in place. Lucia imagined she could see the miasmas, puffing out around her skirts like fog, every step she took stirring up the sick like dust that clung to her clothing and her face. So she went back inside her house, and decided they would make do with what was stored in the larder.

One night, Lucia woke in the pitch-black of their shuttered bedchamber, covered in sweat and trying to discern if anything was actually the matter. She thought she detected the first faint beginning of nausea, and focused on it, waiting for the feeling to dissipate, the leftovers of some anxious dream. But the dull ache tightened into sharp waves and she knew she would vomit. She leaped naked out of bed and ran to the chamber pot, clutching her mouth, retching violently.

“What is it, wife?!” cried her husband.

Lucia was throwing up and could not answer. But she did not need to. He gathered his things and locked her in the room. Still, she would not believe it was that . It must have been the old salted fish they had for dinner. Had she put it to soak the night before or in the morning? Perhaps she was finally pregnant? She dragged the pot back over next to the bed, and waited to feel better but only kept feeling worse. The relief from the vomiting lasted only minutes before her stomach cramped anew. She spent the rest of the night like this alone, growing weak and thirsty. In the early morning, the door was unlocked and Antonella pushed in, looking sweaty and wan herself.

Then the dreadful buboes grew on her throat and in her secret places and Lucia could deny no longer that the pestilence had found her. All the other worries of her life, past and present, became trifles. In between bouts of vomiting, she bargained with God, offering her most weak and painful moments, to be experienced a hundredfold over again in exchange for deliverance from her current plight. Antonella became too weak even to put a tepid rag on her mistress’s brow, and curled up in the corner where she expired. This was when the merchant locked the door for good, letting the body molder in the same room where his wife lay bedridden. It took a few days, but with his entire household (almost) dead of the plague, he finally knew it was time to abandon the inventory in his Florentine warehouses and flee.

“And that is how I found you?” said Ginevra.

“Yes, that is how you find me.”

“Monna Lucia, I’m very sorry... I know what it’s like when a man leaves you all alone.”

“I had heard of this, this terribleness where family abandons family. But to hear these things is not to believe they will happen to oneself. But we were not such good friends, my husband and I.”

“It is monstrous all the same, for him to flee from you.”

“How many times I prayed he would go away, but I meant on business. Not like this.”

She teared up, and began to mutter over and over, “What shall I do?”

“Lucia—now you are free to do as you wish.”

Lucia sniffled and thought this over. What did she wish? It was possible, once her tale was heard...people would sympathize with her taking a vow of chastity. She could become a nun in some comfortable convent with nice gardens. Or! Her husband could die of plague, in which case she might inherit all his properties, if she could keep the knowledge of his death from the bastard sons for a bit. She smiled a little. Ginevra saw it.

“And another pleasant thing: if you are cured of pestilence once, you are cured forever.”

“May it be so, God willing,” Lucia said. “ That’s the thing to think about, not my stupid husband. Blessings upon the Virgin for sending you, dearest Ginevra, to—uh, why did you come into my home?”

Ginevra didn’t really know how to explain it herself. “Well, I was summoned here by the bishop, from Genoa, to catch the thief who has been stealing relics and switching them for bottles.”

Lucia frowned. “I have heard of the missing relics. But I thought the saints abandoned the city because we’re all such awful sinners. The bishop really asked you to help?”

“Not directly, I suppose, but his nephew who was once my...friend wrote to me on his behalf. And this morning, I spoke with the inquisitor, Fra Michele di Lapo. He gave me a contract that validates my being here. Here, you can see the documents. I do not lie.”

Lucia looked skeptically at the cramped writing and large seals presented to her.

“Well, it all seems very official...” She read a bit of the letter. “Ludovico Acciaiuoli is your friend?”

“Was. He died before I arrived.” Ginevra winced at her own statement, as if she had just uttered the curse that made an awful thing permanent. “Did you know him?”

“Just a bit, his wife is a friend of mine, though—do you know if she lives?”

She shook her head “no,” and felt a fool for mourning somebody else’s husband.

“And so... I’m sorry, but still, why you? All the way from Genoa?”

“Because,” Ginevra said, forcing herself to focus on the present conversation, to hold in her grief a little longer yet, “they know I will not get sick. That I can go investigate the places where other men fear to go. And now, you could, too, if you like?” She said the last bit hopefully, timidly.

“Me???” said Lucia, sitting up too quickly, making her head spin. She lay back down in the pillows. “How strange my life has become.”

“I’m sorry. Let us stop here, you need more rest.”

“No, it’s just... I’m not sure how helpful I can be. If you wanted money, or a place to stay...”

“A place to stay, I would not refuse.”

“To that you are most welcome. I will be glad of the company.”

Ginevra felt a little wave of happiness. It had been years since anyone was glad of her company, besides of course Piero.

“As to your other task,” Lucia continued, “it does not seem right for we two women to interfere.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I don’t know about you, but my education has only been in the realm of ladies’ business. This seems a very complicated and delicate matter, more than women can comprehend.”

“Trust me, Lucia, if there were any man for the job, they would have taken him. But you will see when you go outside again, there are no men for any job at all. So we can decide for ourselves what we may do and what we may not.”

Lucia was terrified and intrigued by this statement. No one had ever trusted her with anything more important than party planning.

“But aren’t you afraid? The thief might not even be a man but a demon.” She thought for a moment. “Or, maybe it’s like others say, and the relics can only be found by the right person.”

“How do you mean?” asked Ginevra.

“Well, you know, like San Marco in Venice.”

Ginevra looked at her blankly.

“I thought everyone knew that story. The relics of San Marco that went missing? No? Well—they disappeared. For years. Nobody could find them until their bishop prayed in just the right way and then—a miracle! They tumbled right out of a column and into his arms, in front of all the most important people in the city. So maybe our relics are just waiting for that. For somebody worthy enough, and then they will return.” Lucia stopped speaking, out of breath.

Ginevra leaned over and wiped beads of sweat that formed on Lucia’s brow. “Hush, hush. You’re still weak from thirst and hunger. Open your mouth, I’ll help you.”

Ginevra thought about what Lucia had just said as she spooned honey-water into her mouth. “Or perhaps it is simple,” she said, tipping the last of the drink into Lucia’s mouth, “the thief steals only for earthly profit.”

“No, no,” said Lucia faintly, still lying down with her eyes closed. “Why not steal the jewels, the gold? And why leave behind those bottles so the crime is obvious?”

“Aha...see. You have sought out the details. You are at least a little bit intrigued.”

Lucia made a face, annoyed at how she had been pulled in.

“Look, Lucia. This is not a situation I would normally interfere with.” Ginevra sighed. If she was going to convince Lucia to help her, she would have to be honest about the entirety of her circumstances. “I only agreed to do it because it is required to reverse my exile and start my life over again. This contract guarantees that if I find the relics, the inquisitor will supply funds for me to start my own business here and to support my application to the physicians’ guild.”

“Ginevra,” Lucia said, fortified enough by the drink to sit herself up, “if it’s money you need to start your business, I will lend it to you. You’ll have all the business you want and more besides, when I tell how you cured me.”

“No! You promised. You must tell no one. Do you remember the water sickness of the year 1340—you would have been a child. I lived here then, and did my healing as I liked, and was banished because of it.”

Lucia was unfazed. She stopped caring about such things after her own father’s execution. “This is why you made me promise to keep it secret?”

Ginevra nodded.

“Why not go anywhere else besides here, then? People are dying the whole world over, you know.”

Because every night, I have terrible dreams; because I cringe with guilt and shame when I think of Sant’Elisabetta; because this is the place I felt most myself and also the place where I was robbed of that feeling; because if I am accepted again in Florence, perhaps these sorrows will go away. “Because living safely has left me sad and lonely. So I am here to do good in a dark hour. And you could, too, if you wish it. In three days, I’m supposed to deliver news of progress to your inquisitor... I could use your help.”

Lucia lay back and tried to imagine herself as a sort of saint, frail and glowing from fasting, demurring humbly from those who asked her to recount how she had rescued the stolen relics of Florence. Perhaps Ginevra’s arrival was a message from God, her true purpose, when she had failed as a wife.

Ginevra took her hand. “Kind lady, lie down and rest now. In the morning, you will begin to feel your regular self. We can talk of these things later.”

“Thank you,” said Lucia, relieved. “When I am better, the first thing I must do is visit Santa Maria Novella and light a candle in thanks that you were sent to me. There is a shrine there to San Tommaso D’Aquino, who keeps special watch over me. It must be he who sent you.”

“I would be grateful,” said Ginevra. And she meant it, though she had never heard of San Tommaso D’Aquino.