Page 29 of The Stone Witch of Florence

TWENTY-EIGHT

RUBY RED CLARET

Evening, July 8th of 1348, Palazzo Tornaparte

G inevra walked slowly along the river toward Lucia’s home, rubbing the bump on her forehead where Lady Girolami’s prayer book had struck her. She didn’t blame her. The poor woman had lost so much—and had more to lose, still. The girl, Zenobia, was in grave danger. Ginevra’s coral had glowed bright red in the tower, and it seemed only a matter of time before the little one fell ill. Please don’t leave us , she’d said. Ginevra could not bear it. Perhaps there was a way to protect the child without provoking the mother. Something in the stones. She must find it, and quickly.

In the approaching dusk, a pile of discarded rags rustled ahead of her. Ginevra heard a little cry; it was a kitten, the color of dust and clay, decorated all over in stripes and dots. Ginevra looked around, but saw no mama cat watching from the shadows. She crouched down and reached out her hand. The kitten suckled her offered fingers. The rags smelled strongly of ammonia. Ginevra’s mind leaped to Agnesa’s deathbed rantings. If you had a lynx, you might use its urine to extract the essence of your jewels. That was what she needed: a catalyst to draw out the healing magic of stones, turn it into something that could be swallowed to protect the blood, the lungs. More than a cure; a prophylactic. And what was a lynx but a gigantic cat who lived in the mountains? Ginevra had seen the pelt of a lynx once, at the port in Genoa. This kitten had the same sort of coloring, the same markings. This is how she would protect Zenobia. She gathered up the kitten and rags in her arms. “Come on, cat, I will let no more creatures die today.” The kitten mewed her thanks.

As night fell, the pair arrived back at the Palazzo Tornaparte, and found Lucia in the kitchen, where she had put together a supper of stale cheese ends paired with a rare ruby claret foraged from her husband’s private cellar. Ginevra looked around the kitchen: the eel bones were still upon the table, and her embers had gone out even though she had buried them carefully in ashes. They’d been scraped out onto the hearth to heat a pot containing the remnants of Ginevra’s bread dough—now scorched and fused rocklike to the bottom of the tin vessel.

“Sorry about dinner,” said Lucia. “I wanted to make you an eel pie like you made me but I couldn’t catch an eel and then I realized I didn’t know how to make a pie and also the fire went out. So, here is cheese.”

“Thank you, Monna Lucia, I’m grateful all the same.” And she meant it.

“Tell me, what is that bundle you carry? It smells like cat piss.”

“It IS cat piss. And I’ve got the cat to go with it. Look—here is one even more in need of a meal than we.” She pulled the top of the rags away and a little cat head popped up to observe her new surroundings.

“Ohhh, she was left all by herself, the same as me. Ginevra, you have collected us all together. Give her here.” She took the kitten from the filthy rags, and fluffed up an old apron inside a basket for her new home. She set down a dish of water and then picked the remnants of dried eel from the rubbish bones and fed her in little bits. The kitten nipped hungrily at her fingers and started to purr.

“Lucia, you are an excellent mother cat.”

“It’s nice to be needed... I came upon my friends today at church. They all thought me dead, and were not so glad to be wrong.”

Ginevra could only shake her head. It had been too much for one day. The numbness was fading, the day’s horrors reasserting their dominance over her psyche. She took a gigantic gulp of the wine.

Lucia grinned.

“What?” said Ginevra.

“The wine—my husband reserved it for his most important business partners. They would only take tiny sips and then praise it like it was their lover after each little drop. Pour me some and we’ll drain the bottle.”

Ginevra obliged, and the women fell into their supper, such as it was, discussing how it had been in their separate days. Lucia told how she had dirtied her knees at the altar of Zenobio, how the Baptistry was locked up. She shared the sad news that the finger of San Tommaso was stolen, and how everybody already knew her Santa Trinita was a dead parish missing its relic. How wicked people met at the tavern Alle Panche to drink and plot. (She tactfully left out her encounter with Ludovico’s widow.) Ginevra carefully added the theft of the Tommaso finger to the inquisitor’s list:

Santa Maria Novella—finger of San Tommaso D’Aquino.

Theft noticed: July 8. Relic last seen: winter 1348.

She then told Lucia of the dead Fra Simone, dead Agnesa, and the dead child in the Torre Girolami, and of how the bloodstones failed her twice. She spoke of the tampered-with relic at San Paolino, and its awful graveyard.

“I couldn’t leave your Antonella there, it was not right. There was not an inch of dirt not already filled. And those on top covered with the most meager sprinkling of earth, like cheese on a lasagna.”

Lucia pushed away her cheese. “So...where is she, then?”

“We sunk her in the river, that way nobody would come and take her finger or her nose.”

“I hope it’s alright if you have been buried under water instead of earth. She did not have a confession, either.” Both of them thought of poor Antonella, stuck in purgatory.

“I will light a candle for her,” said Lucia, adding it to the mental list of candles she’d already promised San Tommaso. “Ginevra, what did you mean, that people would take her finger or her nose?”

“Ugh. Give me some more of that expensive wine.” Ginevra explained what she had heard—people making a business taking bits from the newly dead and disguising them as genuine relics.

“No!”

“It’s true, I swear it. And there is a man who makes his living buying up these pieces of flesh and keeps a shop where he sells them as true relics.”

Lucia turned ashen, and went to her room. She came back with a necklace containing a small bit of dried-up something. “A gift, from Pampinea, who is much taken with that sort of thing. I suppose this is not really a piece of San Sebastiano, then?”

Ginevra remembered Becchino’s mention of the current popularity of San Sebastiano and grimaced. Lucia threw it out the window. “Alright. Enough. There is work to be done.” Ginevra stood up and busied herself in starting a new fire. She had to keep her mind occupied or the sorrow would take over and she would never be able to accomplish the task the inquisitor set for her.

“What are you doing?”

“Two people died today under my fingertips. I might have saved them had I been more prepared. There is a girl still alive—for now—the bravest little thing, Lucia. She begged me not to leave her.”

“It is tragic to be sure. But, Ginevra, you must—”

“There is a way, I think, I can draw the power out of the bloodstones, so it can be delivered all throughout the body. Protect her from disease before it happens.”

“Really? How would you do that?”

“I’m not sure exactly,” Ginevra admitted. “I only read about it once, long ago. My teacher Agnesa reminded me of it with her last breath this very morning.” Before you could make amends, before you could say you loved her and you were so, so sorry.

“Ginevra?”

“Yes. Sorry—there are standard methods for transferring the magical essence of one thing to another. If I am remembering correctly, the first thing is the stones must be steeped overnight with urine from our cat, and I suppose a bit of honey and wine, and tended constantly the whole time.”

“The whole night?” Lucia had never done anything that took a whole night.

“Yes. Then eventually it will froth up, then you let it rest, and then it becomes clear and that’s how you know it’s done. The magic of the boiled object—in our case, the bloodstones—will have spread also to the boiling liquid.”

“And it has to be cat urine because...?”

“For magic things like this, it’s the urine of cats that works the best. Or rather, really it should be a wild lynx from the mountains whose urine works wondrous things all by itself and sometimes even hardens into gems, but for us this regular kitten will have to do. I think it should still work, right?”

“If you say so. What is the honey for, then? And the wine?”

“That’s just so you forget you’re drinking cat piss.”

“Ginevra, I am so very glad you broke your contract to cure me. But deliberately mixing medicines for one of the most famous families in town? You must understand that they punish people most terribly here. It is not so uncommon that someone is beheaded or burned for some trivial-seeming thing... My own father...”

“Yes, I know how it is,” said Ginevra defensively. “I used to live here, too, you know.”

She pointed to the scar on her nose. “This line that makes my face crooked—this was my reward for stopping the water sickness of 1340. They meant it to be much worse.”

“Your face is not so crooked, Ginevra,” Lucia replied quietly.

“That’s because I fixed it myself—they cut off half my nose to mark me a heretic.”

“So you understand better than anyone what will happen if they catch you at healing again.”

“That was the problem, the first time I was caught . This time I will be quick—by tomorrow morning, this new medicine will be delivered, then back to the missing relics. Nobody will notice. The inquisitor has no retinue. The bishop cannot be bothered. Who is there to see me?”

“Yes, it seems that way now, but you know how it can be. Just when you feel safe, somebody hears something, sees something, and the guard who went away will be back and knocking at your door. My door.”

“No one will know.”

“The Lady Girolami will know.”

“I’ll tell her it’s nourishing broth to aid recovery. I will visit her in the morning and be done with it.” Lucia was torn. Of course, Ginevra was right; she should do what she could to save a child. But she was worried about what would happen to her friend should she be found repeating the crimes of her past.

“Ginevra, my acquaintance Pampinea, she said people trade stolen goods at Alle Panche. She said corrupt clergy go there, too—would this not be a good place to investigate? We should go now—it is only open at night.”

“Tonight is for saving Zenobia’s life. Perhaps tomorrow.”

Lucia did not appreciate being discounted yet again. She decided to take a dramatic stance to get Ginevra’s attention.

“Fine. I will go to Alle Panche tonight. By myself, while you work. The sooner we catch the thief, the sooner you can get your license and stop this sneaking around.” The ploy worked.

“By yourself??” said Ginevra, looking up from the fire she was attempting to rebuild.

“You speak with the same tone of Pampinea! What, am I a baby who can’t even feed herself? There is no curfew enforced now.”

“I’m sorry, of course, you are not. It’s just...have you ever spent time in taverns before?”

“Sometimes when traveling.”

“But not by yourself, of course.”

“No. Always with a chaperone.”

“Don’t you think your presence would be obvious, then? What would happen if our thief was there, and learned he was being asked after?”

“I wouldn’t be so obvious. All sorts are mixing who wouldn’t otherwise. Look at you and I, for example. I would never have invited you here in normal times.”

“Exactly, your husband is a man of importance. You don’t think you’ll be recognized?”

“Well... I could wear poor Antonella’s other dress so I’ll look like a maid.”

Ginevra was about to continue her list of reasons why Lucia shouldn’t go, but stopped herself. Who was she to tell an adult woman where she could and could not go? She’d practically begged Lucia to help, and now it was being offered freely. Perhaps it would be good for her, to enact something of her own design. “It’s true the light is low in places such as this...and people have had much to drink, as a rule, before they even walk in the door.”

“Yes!”

“And, I suppose you could just say you’re a new widow joining in by yourself for the first time, because your husband and all your friends are gone.”

“Yes. How depressingly true that is.”

“Alright, then, if you are determined, Lucia, you go with my gratitude. Here, I have some things that will help keep you safe.” Ginevra pulled her little leather bag from her purse, and carefully poured a colorful pile of gemstones onto the table, selecting a transparent wine-colored disk, about the size of a thumbnail. She held it out for Lucia to take.

“What is this lovely thing?”

“It is a purple amethyst, and a very special one. If you keep it under your tongue or in your cheek, you may drink as much as you wish but never feel drunk. In this way, you may benignly loosen the tongues of others while remaining lucid yourself.” She dropped the stone into Lucia’s outstretched palm.

Lucia grew nervous as she looked at the amethyst. She hadn’t expected Ginevra to agree to it so readily.

“Wait—I just thought of something: Even if I were to go to the tavern with the jewel, and speak to rough people, and even if my disguise were convincing enough...to walk the streets alone after dark. It is not wise. Any scoundrel knows he can get away with any crime right now...”

But Ginevra just nodded knowingly. “Don’t worry, I have something for that, too.” She picked up from the pile a golden hexagonal crystal attached to a silver chain, and put it around Lucia’s neck. “This is a heliodor. Hold it in your hand and it will be a torch seen only by yourself and anyone touching you. The light is invisible to all others. It’s so dark now, the moon almost gone, that if you are quiet, you can move about unseen.”

“Oh—so, that solves that issue, then?”

Ginevra beamed.

“I supposed I’d rather not be here to smell all the boiling cat urine, anyhow... Tell me,” she said, stalling for time, “where do you get your wonderful stones?”

Ginevra had never had the chance to show off her collection before. “The most precious to me were given by a dear friend. She is long dead.” Ginevra paused, swallowing hard, waiting for the lump in her throat to leave so she could speak further. Even with all the day’s death, the loss of Vermilia still stung like a new cut whenever Ginevra’s mind landed upon it. She touched the jasper ring on her left hand. Lucia reached out and squeezed her arm.

“So, as I was saying,” said Ginevra, taking a deep breath, “once I learned what to look for, I acquired more gems from merchants and sailors who came into Genoa from their own far-off lands.”

“And where do they find them?”

“From all sorts of frightening places. Some grow in the sea, or in the stomachs of animals, like this bezoar.” She picked up a shiny brown sphere, about the size of a peach pit and with the look of fine polished wood.

“And what is its magic?” asked Lucia, now enthralled.

“If you grate a little bit of it over a poisoned drink, it will render it harmless.”

“You mean, grate it as if it were a nutmeg?”

“Precisely.”

“But if you know it’s poisoned, wouldn’t you just not drink it instead of wasting the bezoar?”

“I hadn’t thought of that... In truth, I haven’t used this one yet. Maybe if the drink was something really delicious and you didn’t want to throw it out? Something expensive like your husband’s wine?”

“Oh, yes, then that would be a good thing to have. And what about this one?” She picked up a gem clear as water, the shape of two pyramids stuck together at their fat bottoms.

“Ah, you remain as ever the wife of a wealthy man. These come from far away and are exceedingly costly. I got this one from an heirless merchant on his deathbed, otherwise he never would have parted with it. It is called diamante. When given as a gift between two quarreling parties, it ends the quarrel.”

“Even a war?”

“So they say.”

“Do diamanti come from inside animals also?”

“No, they come from deep canyons in India where they are guarded by serpents and sharp rocks so it is too perilous for any man to venture down and gather them.”

“So how do they get them, then?”

“They throw butchered goats off the cliff tops into the canyons, and the stones stick into the soft meat. Eagles fly down to the dead goats and bring them back to their nests to feed their chicks. Then the merchants scare away the mother birds, and pick through the carcasses to find their treasure.”

“Come, Ginevra. This is a story for a child, is it not?”

“Perhaps, but it is what they say! And until we have journeyed to India and seen for ourselves, who are we to doubt such a fine tale? But enough of this for now. It is late already, and if you are to be on your way, you must be on your way.”

And with that, she picked up the dirty street rags and threw them into a pot with water, beginning the long process of extracting the healing essence of the bloodstones with the help of a kitten.