Page 27 of The Stone Witch of Florence
TWENTY-SIX
TORRE GIROLAMI
Afternoon, July 8th of 1348, Torre Girolami
N obody knew how long the Girolami had lived in Florence, but it might as well have been since the beginning of time. Their tower was in the oldest part of the city, near the Ponte Vecchio. The structure itself was already a relic of another age, built when the magnate families fought openly in the streets and then ran back into their personal fortresses to shoot each other with arrows from the rooftops. Now, though, the city was a place for fat merchants, not hardened warlords. The outdated towers were eyesores, and it was forbidden to build any more of them. Most families had moved on, chopping off the tops of their towers and renovating them into more comfortable modern palazzos. But the Girolami remained in their ancestral home, its archaic form a testament to the longevity of their clan.
Ginevra had hurried past this tower many times during her years at Sant’Elisabetta, but never paid it much attention. Now, as she stood at the locked door, she was struck by the oppressive gloominess of the massive gray stone structure. It was square and narrow, high as a bell tower. She had to bend her head all the way back to see the top. The door was as small as the building was large. She banged on it, then stepped back, afraid of her own boldness. Nothing.
She shouted, “Hello,” up at the small windows that perforated the tower in a vertical line.
Nothing.
They are dead already , she thought.
“Hey!! You!”
Ginevra jumped and looked up at the tower, but the windows remained shut.
“Hey! Over here, stupid woman!”
She spun around. It was a neighbor—poking his head out of his own window. “I wouldn’t try so hard to get in there if I were you,” he said. “The whole family is nearly dead.”
“Did you say nearly dead? As in, still alive?”
“That’s not the part I would focus on. The lord and master is cold and carried away.”
“So I have heard—but I have urgent business with his widow and must be admitted.”
The neighbor spit out his window. “See to it that you shut the door quickly and open it only slightly. I’ll not be made ill by them.”
Ginevra returned her attention to the door. It fit so perfectly against its frame she could not even get her fingernails around the edge. She heard a little creak from above, and saw a small child poking her head out some forty feet above the street. Ginevra smiled and waved at her, motioning for her to come down. The child disappeared immediately and was gone for so long Ginevra thought she had scared her away. Of course, anyone inside would know not to open the door for shouting strangers. But fortune was with her, and after some minutes of creaking gears and jangling chains, the door opened a crack and the child peeked out. She was about five years old and wearing only her shift of the finest linen that was very dirty.
Ginevra put her hand into the opening quickly, before the girl could shut it again, and eased her way in. There was hardly any space in the entry, just a small stool where a guard should be sitting and a long staircase twisting up into gloom. Ginevra marveled at how such a young child had managed to open the secure entryway, but remembered that opening forbidden doors is one of the very first skills a child learns. And also, in the same way an adult may receive a surprising burst of strength and endurance when confronted with danger, a child has the ability to become older and wiser than their years, and this poor little one had been waiting patiently for somebody to come see her. Now that a woman her own mother’s age was present, she reverted and flung herself against Ginevra’s skirts and held them tightly.
“It’s alright, little bird,” Ginevra said, kneeling to embrace her. “My name is Ginevra, what’s yours?”
“Zenobia,” she whispered, barely audible.
“Of course it is. Is your mama here, Zenobia?”
She pointed up the stairs. Ginevra put the child on her hip and began to climb. Even though Zenobia curled up like a kitten in her arms, it was a struggle to keep from tripping on her long skirts as she made her way up the narrow spiral in the dim light.
After what seemed like ages, the staircase opened up into a compact salon with low ceilings supported by massive wooden beams, painted with stripes and stars. The walls were lined with real woven tapestries instead of just painted imitations like at Lucia’s. On a sideboard, again those ceramics of chickens with grapes, only here the suite was bespoke, the painted vines swirling about the great thick X that was the Girolami coat of arms. A ewer of silver was engraved with the same. There were carpets placed over the red tile floor, and the narrow windows were glazed with crystal panes of Venetian glass. But it was dark and silent, and stank of sick. Ginevra tried to put Zenobia down but she would not let go. Instead, she pointed one little finger toward a doorway on the other side of the room.
Still locked together, the pair crossed over and entered. For the second time that day, Ginevra was shocked by the foulness she saw, and felt her coral grow hotter still as it held at bay the disease that filled the air and coated the walls. Here lay mother and two sons on one mattress, breathing with heavy wheezes. Not one of them was strong enough to acknowledge Ginevra, let alone question her presence in their home. They had lain like this since their father’s body was taken away the day before. With the great man dead, none of his friends felt obligated to attend to his family. Ginevra felt the girl’s forehead, examined her throat. She showed no signs of infection. Yet.
“Zenobia, I must put you down so I can help your mama and brothers.” The child reluctantly loosened her grip and allowed herself to be placed on the floor.
Ginevra went up to the bed and pulled back the cover, damp with unmentionable fluids. Their fevers were so high she could feel the heat rising from them. All were very far gone, the mother, lost in the troubled sleep that precedes death. I must save the mother first , she thought. Her daughter needs a mother. She turned to Zenobia. “Little bird, go find a cloth and cool water, and put it upon the foreheads of your mother and brothers. Can you do that?”
The child nodded and ran away. After she left the room, Ginevra peeled back Lady Girolami’s shift and saw the swellings were on her thighs and in her armpits, too, black and trembling. The same symptoms as Lucia. Thank God. The bloodstones had been effective against this manifestation.
“Forgive my familiarity, Dama,” she said as she took out her bloodstones and placed them to the swellings. As with Lucia, the stones began to thump like hearts, speeding up until the ill woman spasmed and vomited and the swellings shrank back into dark purple bruises. Ginevra did the same for the eldest boy and his breathing grew calm. But when she turned to the younger boy, he had no swellings. Instead there was dried blood around his mouth, and his breath came out in pneumatic wheezes. It is in his lungs. She placed the stones to his chest. His back arched and his mouth foamed and would not stop until she took the stones away. It is too deep. Shit. Agnesa was right. Shit, shit, shit.
She turned quickly, afraid Zenobia had seen, but she had not yet returned. She rolled him onto his side so he would not choke. She thought of how haughty she was toward the guild doctors, and now here she was, as unprepared as all of them. With a sorry heart, she pulled from her pouch a Memphis stone, which is white and crumbly, and can take away pain but will not cure a disease. She went to the fireplace set in the corner of the bedchamber, carved with more of the Girolami X s, and rubbed the Memphis roughly against the hearth until a bit of powder accumulated. She poured a few drops of water on it and mixed it into a paste, which she put on her finger and then shoved it into the boy’s mouth. Ginevra wrung her hands. If he were to get better now, it would be through the strength of his own body and nothing she could provide.
She almost began to weep in frustration but then Zenobia returned with a wet sheet and began dutifully to wash his face. Ginevra’s throat tightened into a painful knob as she held back her tears. She was the only conscious adult in the whole tower. And poor brave Zenobia trusted her to help. In the fireplace, Ginevra found an ember still burning in the ashes. She stripped Zenobia’s soiled shift and lit it, and then did the same for the rest of the family’s clothing, and their lovely bed things. She re-dressed them in clean shifts, and then she pulled Zenobia to her chest and sat down to wait for what would become of the other three. Death came soon, to the little boy. Ginevra and his sister wrapped him up solemnly. The second time in a day Ginevra had shrouded someone. This was when the Lady Girolami awoke from her stupor. She sat up with a start, her body understanding that it had been asleep while her children needed her.
Ginevra placed gentle hands on her shoulders, explaining all that had happened, how she was a healer, and how Zenobia had gone down all the stairs by herself to let her in. How the littlest one was dead. The lady stared at her, with wide blank eyes. She rose shakily, and walked around the bed to view her child’s body, placing both hands upon him.
“Why are you in my home?” she asked at last.
“I am so sorry, Dama—I just wanted to help—”
“Nobody just helps anymore. We are in a dead parish. What did you come here for, tell me?”
“It is nothing. I would not burden you with it on such a day.”
“Woman, look at what has become of me! I struggle to make sense of what is real—state your purpose, do not add to my confusion. Why are you in my home as my children die?”
Ginevra bit her lip, then haltingly answered: “I came because I am tasked with stopping the relic thief. I was going to ask about the missing Zenobio head. I know the relic is of great importance to your family. But, once I saw... I just wanted to help... I stayed to help.”
“ Zenobio. The moment that head was gone our fates were sealed. We should have fled, but my husband made us stay shut up in here, waiting for death to find us. And so he has.” She pulled Zenobia to her, and made them both lie down on the bed, nestled between the body and his still-breathing brother.
Ginevra cringed. What had she been thinking, letting the little girl remain in this room? “Dama, your daughter has not yet contracted the disease. We must bury the dead immediately to protect her. I will help you—” She reached toward the body.
Lady Girolami pushed her hand away with unexpected force. “Do not touch him. I will not let you take my boy!”
“I understand it’s hard, but we must act quickly. Surely, you have seen—”
A book of prayers struck Ginevra in the forehead. “Get out of my home! My babies belong with me!”
The woman was mad with grief, and what was Ginevra to her but an intruder upon her most awful moment? An oil lamp whizzed by Ginevra’s ear and smashed on the wall behind her.
Zenobia began to cry. She ran to Ginevra and whispered, “Please don’t leave us.”
Lady Girolami wrenched her daughter out of Ginevra’s arms. “I said GET OUT.”
Overcome by rage and anguish, she shoved Ginevra out of the room and slammed the heavy door.
No amount of pounding or pleading could convince Lady Girolami to readmit Ginevra into the locked chamber. And so, with heavy heart and leaden legs, she began the long descent back to the street.