I served out my penance to the letter. I ate naught but bread and water for the following two weeks, though I still went to the market daily for gossip as well as heartier fare for poor Rodolfo. And the day after my confession, I returned to the monastery of San Marco with a purse of coins—about half of what remained—and entrusted it to one of the brothers there, telling him that these were alms intended for the poor. He thanked me profusely and assured that he would personally see it done.
Unlike the priests and bishops and cardinals of the Vatican, who said one thing and meant another, I believed him entirely.
Yet the situation was rapidly deteriorating in Florence. The new anti-Savonarola Signoria was encouraging those in Florence who opposed the friar and his methods to cause trouble in the streets, and as such gangs of young men who identified as Compagnacci—largely upper-class youths who resented the puritan strictures Savonarola had imposed upon Florence—began to pick fights in the street with known Piagnoni, throwing rocks and insults alike at them. The friar ever preached nonviolence and turning the other cheek, but human nature being what it was, fights often broke out between the two factions. It became safer, most days, to stay indoors and off the streets. All of this I duly reported to Cesare, as I could not see any way to excuse ceasing to send him reports.
And, of course, the Signoria was encouraged by the pope, which very few in Florence knew, other than me.
The tension in the streets of Florence was thicker than holy oil; and, like oil, all it needed was one spark to set everything alight. And soon enough, that spark came.
I never knew for certain what caused the events of that fateful night. I heard it was a simple fight between the Compagnacci and the Piagnoni, commonplace in the city of late, which started it all. I also heard a rumor it was an attack on Fra Mariano Ughi, one of Fra Savonarola’s brother monks, as he made his way to the cathedral to preach. Perhaps it was some combination of those things. Yet the cause mattered little. However it happened, someone had set a match to the tinderbox that was Florence, and before long the whole city was on fire.
Soon, there were gangs, small armies, running through the streets, and even within my house I could hear shouting; I could see, even with the curtains drawn, the flicker of torches being carried past my windows. I donned my light summer cloak and pulled up the hood, walking out into the dining room to find Rodolfo eating. “I am going out,” I announced, “to see what is happening in the streets. I will not be gone long.”
“Wait a bit, Maddalena, and I shall accompany you,” he protested. “It may not be safe for a woman alone. It is late, besides.”
“I shall be just fine,” I said. “I must report to His Eminence, mustn’t I?” With that I was gone, out and through the door, following the streams of people passing the house to see what the commotion was.
It was not long before I realized where everyone was headed, where the explosion of tension had centered itself: the monastery of San Marco, not far from the house where I was staying. “Oh, no,” I murmured as I rounded the corner onto the street where the monastery sat, only to see a huge crowd gathering in front of it, the shouts and screams deafening. It was a scene out of hell itself, lit by the dim, flickering lights of torches. “Oh, no. No!” I ran the rest of the way, pushing past curiosity seekers until I was at the edge of the crowd in front of the monastery. From within I could hear screams, the sounds of doors being broken down, and loud booms that seemed to be shots from an arquebus—or, likely, more than one. People stumbled away from the crowd, faces bloody, clutching wounds on their arms and sides and legs.
San Marco was under siege.
My legs grew weak underneath me, and I staggered, using all my strength to stop from falling to my knees, for doing so would surely mean being trampled. Had I done this? Had I set this in motion?
There was nothing I could do to help matters; only injury and perhaps death awaited me inside. Yet I felt compelled to bear witness. To bear witness to what I had wrought.
I began shoving people out of my way, shoving through the crowd to get to the entrance of the monastery. I had the urgent desire, nonsensical as it was, to find Fra Savonarola in the fray, to beg his forgiveness for what I had done, to confess everything I had left out when I’d met with him.
I had to make sense of it. For my own peace of mind and soul.
Soon the crowd parted to allow armed men through into the monastery, and from the calls of those around me, these soldiers had been sent by the Signoria to maintain order. Even as those outside were quieted by the arrival of organized troops, still I tried unsuccessfully to fight my way through to the monastery. At one point, I tipped back my head and howled at the night sky in futile rage and frustration, a sound completely swallowed up by the chaos around me.
Suddenly, I felt strong arms around me, pulling me backward, wrestling me away from the riot. Instinctually, I struggled. “Let go of me!” I growled, flailing and kicking as my assailant lifted me bodily and carried me away from the crowd.
“Maddalena! It is me!” a familiar voice said, setting me down some distance from the crowd. I turned to find Rodolfo. “I must get in there!” I cried, making to run back. “I must see…”
Rodolfo caught my arm in a vise grip, preventing me from running back. “No,” he said. “His Eminence charged me with your protection, and I mean to do my duty.”
He pointed ahead. “There is nothing more you can do or see. Look.”
I watched as, emerging from the crowd, Fra Savonarola came, marched between two armed guards, with more to the front and back of him. “He has been arrested,” Rodolfo yelled in my ear, so he might be heard above the shouts of joy and cries of dismay and pain. “It is over.”
I made to take another step forward, and Rodolfo seized me again, spinning me to face him. “It is over!” he shouted, shaking me once.
I began to sob.
Rodolfo released me, gently draping one arm around my shoulders. “Come. We are going home.”
He did not mean our borrowed house in Florence.
The next morning, I sent a report on ahead to Cesare. There was no time for me to bid farewell to Anna Landucci, or to Maria the vegetable seller. I would be gone as if I had never been there, just as Cesare had wished. Rodolfo and I packed up our belongings, loaded the cart, and followed the messenger—albeit at a much slower pace—back to Rome.