“Seek and ye shall find, but be certain of that which you search.”
It was a short journey up the Via San Gallo, no more than a block of fine palazzos, before the driver turned left onto the Via S. Caterina. The convent was no more than a few doors up on the right. Viviana knew they would reach it in no more than a few minutes and readied herself, but not enough.
From within the shadows of the slim alley that was the Via Mozza, the man jumped out and with one wide leap, jumped up onto the side of the wagon, hanging precariously onto the driver’s bench. The women yelped and tumbled about the carriage, the horses screeched as the carriage jerked to a stop, as the man pushed aside the driver and pulled hard on the reins.
“We are undone,” Mattea said, her calm acceptance of their seeming demise surprising Viviana.
“We aren’t done until they hang us.” Viviana regained her seat, pushed aside the curtain, and stuck her head out the window, pushing against the pull of a grasping hand that attempted to haul her back in. The hand released her quickly when she gave a chuckle.
“What the devil are you laughing at?” Isabetta fumed.
But before Viviana could answer, the unwelcomed rider stuck his head in the now uncovered aperture.
“Ladies,” he tipped his head as if he bid them buongiorno in the finest salata. Turning to Viviana, there was but a flicker of a grin on his well-formed lips.
“You were followed and I think they have figured out your destination. They are no more than minutes behind you. Unless something is done to throw them off, they will get to her first.”
Viviana lost any joy she had found in his presence. “She is here?”
Sansone nodded his head. “If I do anything…” his deep voice trailed off.
Viviana placed her hand on his. She felt the stares boring into her from her companions.
“Have not a care. You have done so much already. I will figure it out.” She squeezed the hand in hers. “Now go!”
With a reluctant nod, he leaned down, brushed his lips across her hand, and as quickly as he had come he was gone.
“Viviana,” Isabetta growled, “if we live to see—”
“Driver,” Viviana ignored her completely as she banged on the wall of the carriage. She yelled once more, “Pull close to the convent’s door but do not stop, only slow to a crawl.”
Looking across at her friends, the small smile remained on her face, though it was not one devoid of nervous fear. “We are going to jump. I will go first, Isabetta you will follow and we will both help Mattea.”
“I need no help, old woman,” Mattea replied and her lips spread into a slow grin.
In seconds, they did exactly that and though Mattea stumbled, though she grunted a bit as her light body fell forward faster than she thought, the task was done without injury. The carriage began to move past.
“Go!” Viviana yelled to the driver, slapping the horse closest to her on the rump, jolting it to a speedy cantor. “Return to the Santa Caterina de Siena convent, and quickly.”
Turning to her now wholly dumbfounded companions, she ordered them as well. “Inside, both of you, quickly.”
Viviana tore the laces that held her right sleeve to her gown, pulled strands of her hair out of her head. “Go to Lapaccia. Hurry!”
Her friends barely got inside the tall, rounded, wrought iron gate before a small group of men on horseback rounded the corner of the Via San Gallo.
Viviana tossed herself against the wall at her back, dropped her head in her hands, and shook her shoulders, sobs raking her body. “They’ve gone,” she muttered and moaned. “They would not listen to me, they would not listen to reason.”
“You speak of Mona Cavalcanti?” The most decorated soldier, he who led the small charge looked down at her with a squint.
“I do.” Viviana lifted herself off the wall, threw herself onto the side of the man’s horse, and grabbed at the soldier’s leg. “I begged her to turn herself in, but she wouldn’t. They wouldn’t.”
“Where have they gone, madonna?”
“I do not know, only that they planned to leave the city, by the Porta a San Gallo.”
With a clipped nod, the man gave his commands. “Return to your home, madonna. Men, forward.”
And with a snap of reins, a dig of spurs, the horses and men bounded away.
Viviana watched their retreat, allowing herself a moment, a half second of time, as an audience member who had just watched an inspired performance, and silently applauded herself, before spinning round and entering the convent.
Just inside the gate, hidden in the shadows of the entrance alcove, her conspirators waited for her, having watched and heard all through the crack of the large door.
“You grow more brazen all the time,” Isabetta plied a respectful rebuke.
Before she could say another word, the convent door opened.
Of all the greetings one might expect when walking into a convent, the one hailing Viviana, Isabetta, and Mattea was the last any of them anticipated.
In the crack of the open portal, a short, stout, wimpled nun studied their faces, and pulled it open, stepping aside for them to enter.
“She knew you would come.”
It was as if the world stopped, time ceased.
In the void, the three women held their breath in pure disbelief.
“Come.” The good sister walked away, a plump hand waving, urging them to follow. “It is well you are here. She needs you.”
“Thank you, dear God. Thank you,” Mattea offered up the resounding gratitude as they grabbed hands, as they hurried to catch up with the quickly moving legs of the short abbess.
“Caterina,” Viviana said. How magnificent it was for her to bring them to the end of their search, to one of the deceased artist’s own disciples.
They stepped into the cell. One glimpse at their friend prostrate upon her cot, pale white and ghostly thin, and they thought their arrival too late. They thought her dead.
Lapaccia’s hair, now more white than black, was a long tangle upon the pillow; it barely moved as she lifted her head a few inches upward, as her eyelids fluttered open.
Her weak gaze touched each woman standing above her, and a tender glimmer sparkled in her sunken eyes. With a weak shake of her head, Lapaccia closed her eyes, and put her head back upon its perch with a smile.
“You should not be here,” her voice was a croak. “I prayed you would not come even as I knew you would.”
Viviana dropped to her knees by the bed, gathering the frail woman in her arms. For a moment, she could do nothing but savor the relief of finding her friend, and finding her alive, if just. For the time being, it was enough.
But the questions hounded her; these months of uncertainty pushed at her back and her tongue.
“What have you done, cara?”
Lapaccia opened her eyes, pushing against the cot, and sat up. Fully awake; though ill, fully present.
“I did what I had to do.”
Isabetta leaned over and kissed the woman on the forehead, withdrawing with a sigh, one of relief and impatience. “Your answer is no answer, Lapaccia. The city has been in the grip of utter madness and you disappeared. Did you expect us not to take note, not to fret?”
“I am sorry. I knew you would, and I do regret it so.”
“The world is topsy-turvy. If you only knew.” Mattea struggled to say more.
“I do know,” Lapaccia replied. “I was in the piazza that day.”
Fiammetta and Natasia rushed in, vexed and breathing hard. The small cell became smaller, a bowl filled to overflowing. The women shuffled about to make room for all, their feet rustling on the dusty stone floor.
“We saw my carriage upon the street. The driver told us…” Natasia hurried to explain their presence, “Oh, Lapaccia—”
But there was no time for reunions, no matter how heartfelt.
Isabetta turned quickly to the small nun now squished into the corner of the room at the foot of Lapaccia’s bed.
“I take it no soldiers have been here yet?”
“Soldiers?” the prioress balked, shaking her head. “No, no soldiers.”
“They are upon our heels,” Viviana said with authority.
“Do they truly look for me?” Lapaccia rasped, but it was a question decidedly rhetorical, astonishment tinged with expectancy.
“You were seen, Lapaccia,” Viviana said gruffly. There was no more time for a polite inquisition, no matter how ill this woman may be. They had come to save her. She must let them. “You were seen leaving the palazzo and carrying something, carrying the painting.”
“Seen?” Lapaccia’s pale gray eyes grew wide and she began to cough.
“Do you have your medicine?” Mattea asked, looking helpless when Lapaccia shook her head.
“We have been giving her water, boiled with mint, then cooled,” the abbess informed them.
“It has helped,” Lapaccia croaked. The coughing fit passed. “I destroyed it, you know, the painting.”
“Wh—” Mattea began.
“Destroyed?” Isabetta croaked.
Viviana wanted answers as badly as the others, “Now is not the time,” she said. “We have to get you out of here, out of Florence.”
“Yes,” the voice came from the doorway. “We must get you out now, mother.”
Every woman within whirled about to see the young, handsome man standing in the doorway.
“Andreano!” Lapaccia yelled out; Mattea echoed the cry.
Upon her son’s handsome face was pure relief, clearly his mother’s whereabouts had been as secret to him as it had been to her clandestine assemblage. He held his arms out to her, but something in his mother’s face, something only he recognized, held him in place.
Lapaccia stood falteringly, silently, with the help of Mattea’s quick hand. Slowly, with great deliberation, her eyes never leaving his face, each step a thoughtful move, Lapaccia came to stand before her son. For one moment, she stared up at him, unbounded love glowing from her gaze.
In the next, the flat of her right palm cracked him across his face, a pummel of such power, his head whipped back on his neck, the imprint of her palm appearing instantly in a red welt on his ruddy skin.
“Lapaccia!”
“Stop!” Mattea screamed.
Amidst more gasps and cries of outrage, Andreano chuckled, silencing them once more. The truth at last came to Viviana. It was Andreano all along—Andreano whom Lapaccia protected. It made no sense; he was a member of the militia. He had, since the assassination of Giuliano, been part of the forces protecting Il Magnifico, apprehending conspirators, and carrying out their death sentences. Why would he need his mother’s protection?
Rubbing his hand upon the offended skin, Andreano stepped into the room. “You have every right, mother. Every right in the world.” His other hand he held out, held aloft with a quiver in the air before his mother. Would she take it? “But then I thought I did too. I thought I had the right to punish him. Lorenzo de’ Medici killed my father.”
Lapaccia’s anger cracked. She took her son’s hand, threw herself into his arms. “It is the notion of a child, Andreano,” Lapaccia sobbed against his chest, wheezing even as she berated him. “Yes, it was a war instigated by Lorenzo de’ Medici, but he did not do it alone. Lorenzo was a young man and your father was a soldier. He would have gone to war, died in it, no matter who made the decision to use force on Volterra. It was his duty.”
The strong, handsome young man crumpled. Bending low, he dropped his forehead upon his mother’s shoulder. “All the terrible things I have seen. I have learned the truth of the world. I understand now,” Andreano moaned. “But when the Pazzis came to me, they were so strong, so convincing.” He lifted his hand, dashing the tears from his face with a hard fist. “I was weak and I listened. I know you can never forgive me. All I can do is save you.”
Andreano held his mother from him, straightening his spine, raising his chin where it should be as a man, a soldier, and the son of a great nobleman and knight. “Now that I know you are alive and well, you must leave Florence and I will give myself into the hands of the Medici.”
“No!”
Two women cried out: Lapaccia, his mother, and Mattea, his lover.
Andreano turned to the young woman, so bereft she could no longer hide her truth in dispassionate behavior. One hand still upon his mother, Andreano reached his other out to her.
“My love, forgive me.” Andreano raised Mattea’s hand to his lips and kissed it deeply.
All lives hold secrets, Viviana thought yet again, as she had so often in the last few days.
“I could not risk telling you,” Andreano shook his head with shame, wavy golden brown hair falling in his face. “I could not risk involving you any more than I already had. I involved all of you. I was stupid and vengeful. I am so very sorry.”
Mattea held him like the anchor to the ship of her life; her shoulders and head dropped with relief, ragged breath came and went as she closed her eyes and simply held him.
“Mattea?”
It was Isabetta who dared to speak, hesitantly, a whisper of pure disbelief.
Mattea opened her eyes. Above her lover’s head, every gaze was upon her.
“You were right, Isabetta, I know not who I am. I love someone whom life has decided I cannot love.” She spoke pointedly. “But love him I do, with every fiber of my being.”
Andreano rose and kissed her forehead. Mattea stepped out of his embrace, spoke to Lapaccia. “I can only ask forgiveness for loving your son. I would not allow him to make it known. I feared your disapproval would force him to choose between us, and this I would never allow.”
Lapaccia’s gaze flitted between them in silence. “All I have ever wanted for my son is love. We cannot control where our hearts takes us, try though we might.” Lapaccia reached out her hands, one for each. “Neither of you need question my forgiveness, for anything.”
“Oh, for the love of God. And now we are to protect a murderer?” Fiammetta cried.
Andreano whirled at her. “I committed no such sin,” he spat.
“Then what did you do?” Fiammetta retorted. “You were in the painting. Your mother would not have taken it were you not.”
And there it was, Viviana thought, chiding herself for her own stupidity.
Fiammetta turned to Lapaccia, seated once more on the cot. She said not a word, but gave a single nod of her head.
“What did you do then?” Fiammetta demanded of the young man.
Andreano’s eyes, wide and forlorn, looked more like those of the child he once was. “I opened the gate. I ensured the gate opened for the Perugini mercenaries who attacked the Palazzo della Signoria.”
It was the most unforeseen of answers. It seemed such an innocuous collusion. However, collusion with the dreadful Pazzis it was. Viviana’s mind volleyed back and forth, between wanting to the slap Andreano as his mother had—the visions haunting her, the viciousness in the church that day wanting, demanding her to do so—and yet, she knew the desire for justice, a consuming flame which left little room for twigs of logic. How could she fault him for the same sin she had committed?
“It will come out, Andreano,” Viviana stated the vicious truth with quiet sadness. “Il Magnifico will not stop until everyone connected, no matter how tenuously, to his brother’s death is dead. I know for certain.”
The hissing slash of a whisper came from the door cracked only inches open; another nun’s long thin face peaked through it.
“There are guards at the gate. They know you are here, they know your son is here. They followed him. We can only hold them off for so long.”
As quickly as she came, she retreated, her appearance like a shy specter.
Lapaccia jumped up with a vitality it would not seem she possessed.
“You must leave, Andreano,” she grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him toward the door.
“I will come back—”
“NO!” his mother spat. “You must leave Florence.”
“He cannot!” Mattea cried.
“He must,” Lapaccia insisted, even as Andreano fought against her push toward the door.
Her son took her hands. Insistent though gentle, he took them from her. “I will not allow my mother to suffer for my actions anymore.”
“And I will not allow my son to die. If you are killed, I would have no reason to live,” Lapaccia hissed. “Will you live with that? Will you allow us both to die?”
Andreano shook his head with the vehemence of a spasm. “You would not. You could not.”
“She will, Andreano,” Isabetta stood behind Lapaccia. “She has the strength of ten men. Look at what she has already done for your safety! She lives for you; all she talks about is you. What is she without you?”
“You, they will kill, me they may only banish.”
“You may not be banished at all, Lapaccia,” Viviana chimed in. “I have been freed from my husband’s sins without recourse. Magnifico has let it be known, you have only to tell your truth. But Andreano must go.” This last she said to Mattea, though it tore her heart to do so.
Her simple words said more than Andreano could ever truly know, but it seemed to tip the scales in his mind.
Lapaccia cocked her head, face puckered in confusion, eyes narrowed upon Viviana. “Your husband’s sins? What sins?”
But Viviana had not a moment to answer.
Men’s voices reached them, deep and insistent, through the small crack in the door.
“Go!” Lapaccia snapped. “Go to my family in the north. One day this will pass and all may return to normal. I know it.”
Andreano grabbed his mother and held her as if he may never do so again. As he held his mother with his left arm, he reached for Mattea with his right, pressing her against his side, their passion a portrait—the very definition of love and desire—waiting to be painted.
He kissed her, hard and deep, without a care for the stares upon them or the open-mouthed gap of the abbess.
“I will see you again, of that never, ever, be unsure.” Andreano’s voice broke on his emotion. “You are mine, heart and soul, as I am yours.”
Tears streamed down Mattea’s pale face. “As I am yours,” she repeated his pledge.
Closing her eyes, able to bear it no more, Lapaccia pushed him from her and out the door.
“Wait!” The nun in the room stepped from her corner and into the fray. “Do not go left from here. Go to the right and then left at the end. It will take you through a very small, private chapel with a door leading out the back way and to the north.”
Andreano bowed in gratitude. With a last look for his mother and his lover, he was gone.
Viviana longed for solace in which to cry, sob as she had not done through all her trials. As a mother, she felt the tearing away of a child. As one never truly loved, she felt the emptiness of Mattea’s loss.
Such sentimental thoughts vanished like smoke at the clanging of armor, as armed men marched their way.
“What are we to do? Do we offer you up to the wolves after all we have done to save you from them?” Fiammetta hissed at them, standing in the center of the room, and whirling round to beseech them all. “Or do we tell what Andreano has done, send them after him? They followed him here. They must know he was involved. How much more must we do?”
“Just one more thing,” Lapaccia coughed her answer, not waiting for the spasms to subside to continue her plea. She took Fiammetta’s hands and squeezed them with all the strength she had left. “Give him time. I ask no more. If we misdirect them, he may have time yet for escape. It is all I will ask, no more, I swear it.”
Fiammetta’s face wrinkled at this woman’s abject beseeching.
“Signora Lapaccia Cavalcanti! Andreano Cavalcanti!”
The door opened, pushed by a gauntlet-covered hand, as the soldier called their names. But as the women within stepped aside, allowing the portal to fully open, the mass of soldiers in the hall could see there was only Lapaccia. There was not a single man within the small cell nor any space in which to hide one. There was barely room to breathe.
Lapaccia stepped forward. “I am Lapaccia Cavalcanti,” she wheezed.
The soldier had the good grace to bow, if in a clipped manner, before the highly ranked noblewoman, suspect though she may be. “Where is your son, madonna? We know he entered this holy place. We saw him ourselves.”
“He is gone.”
The dark and ruddy soldier nodded his boulder like head on a neck of a tree trunk. “I can see that. But where, where has he gone?”
Lapaccia shook her head, suddenly coughing too much to speak.
Viviana knew not if it was truth or diversion, but her friend paled more, white skin turning a sickly shade of blue as Lapaccia could not get the air into her lungs.
“You see how ill she is,” Viviana said, stepping in, unable not to. “Please allow us to get her to a physician.”
“No one leaves this room until we know where Andreano Cavalcanti has gone.”
Mattea sobbed, leaning on Isabetta’s shoulder.
Fiammetta stepped forward.
“I will tell you where he is,” she said, her voice harsh and angry, impatient and defiant. “Do you know who I am, soldier?” Fiammetta stepped up with fisted hands upon her hips.
The man began to shake his head, until a soldier at his back whispered in his ear. The lead soldier quickly dropped a bow.
“Contessa,” was all he said; it was enough.
“Good. You understand who I am, now listen.” Fiammetta dropped her hands from her hips and crossed them on her chest. The women in the room, her sisters in the great sorority they had formed, held their breath as if it were their last. Would she honor their bond or would her ire, so quick to the fore, rule the day?
“Andreano Cavalcanti has run to Rome. He seeks sanctuary with the Pope.”
It was the perfect answer; its logic its greatest asset. The women knew not to release their relief, knew they could not, no matter how it burst in their hearts.
“Thank you, Contessa,” the soldier said, and with a nod over his soldier, sent the majority of the others on their way out the front door, the opposite way Andreano had gone. “Your assistance will be duly noted.”
“As it should,” Fiammetta huffed, fully in her role now.
“But I fear,” the soldier continued, “Mona Cavalcanti must come with me. I must take her to the Gonfaloniere.”
The women had no defense against his claim.
“But I promise you, she will be seen by a physician.”
“Oh, I can promise you the same,” Isabetta stepped up with a sneer, “for I shall be accompanying you to the palazzo.”
Viviana stepped up beside Isabetta. “As will I.”
“And I!” the rest of the women chirped.
The soldier, seasoned and scarred though he may be, tottered. Closing his eyes, his large hand rubbed hard across his forehead, as if it pained him, sending the black curls falling upon it into impatient disarray.
He opened his eyes, shrugged his broad shoulders, and bowed again, one hand gracefully arching toward the door.
“Then let us away, my ladies,” he surrendered, irony thick in his deep voice.
Like a religious procession, the women of the artist sisterhood filed from the room, Lapaccia in the lead, held on one side by Mattea, on the other by Isabetta.