After Nones, Feast of the Sacred Belt, the Year of Our Lord 1456
Lucrezia sat in a sturdy wooden chair next to Fra Filippo’s hearth, watching a girl in a ragged dress stirring the fire. Her arms were thin, but she poured water into an iron kettle effortlessly, raising the heavy pot shoulder height to hang it over the flames.
“I’m Rosina,” the girl said. Her hair was dark, her face plain and sweet. “I’m Paolo’s sister.”
The sounds of the festa reverberated outside, but all was quiet in the painter’s studio.
“Why aren’t you at the festa?” Lucrezia asked.
“I come every morning to help Brother Filippo in the kitchen,” Rosina said. Dark eyelashes grazed the top of her cheeks. “I’ll go to the pieve when my work here is done.”
The girl looked at Lucrezia’s robe and wimple.
“Soon I’ll be of age,” she added. “Then I will enter the Convent Santa Margherita.”
Rosina handed Lucrezia a heavy mug. As she drank the sweet wine, the novitiate felt fatigue settle into her body. She hadn’t slept all night. It wouldn’t hurt to rest, she thought as she set the cup on the floor and closed her eyes. She was safe here. Surely she’d feel better if she prayed for guidance and surrendered to the sleep that is the Lord’s best medicine.
Lucrezia woke on soft bedding. The room was dark and silent and for a few confused seconds she thought she was home in Florence, in the walnut bed that she’d shared with Spinetta.
“Is anyone here?” she called out.
She lifted the blanket and sat up. Someone had removed her boots and stockings. Vaguely she remembered Rosina’s small, strong hands. Lucrezia rubbed her eyes until they adjusted to the darkness, and looked around at a small bedroom of rough-hewn beams and uneven walls. The ceiling was made of a thatched straw that could barely be expected to keep out the spring rains. She strained to listen, but the bottega and streets beyond seemed quiet.
“Is anyone here?”
She was still wearing her robe, and her wimple was tangled. As she removed the head covering Lucrezia looked around the bedroom, peering through the darkness at the outline of the large wooden bed, a simple chest, and a small washbasin. Above the basin she could make out the thick lines of a cross. She wondered if the monk had returned from the festa, and if Rosina was still in the kitchen. But before she could rouse herself, Lucrezia fell back onto the bed. She was as far from the prior general as she could be, in the protection of Fra Filippo, chaplain of her convent.
Tiptoeing into the kitchen the following day, Lucrezia was grateful to see Rosina in a clean blue dress covered by a pale linen apron.
“Buongiorno.” Rosina held a large wooden spoon, and her apron pockets were brimming with rags.
Taking a piece of bread from the girl, Lucrezia lifted the curtain that led to the monk’s studio and peeked into the workshop. Morning light filled the bottega and the monk turned from his easel, paintbrush in hand.
“You’ve slept a long time, Sister Lucrezia,” Fra Filippo said, his face brightening at the sight of her.
“I must leave here,” she exclaimed. “I must at least present myself at the Valenti palazzo, where I’m expected.”
“Don’t worry.” Fra Filippo held a hand under his dripping paintbrush. “They’ve received word that you are detained.”
“But what reason did you give?”
“The note said you aren’t feeling well.” The painter took in the tight lines of her face, the shadows beneath her eyes. “Which seems to be true.”
“You told them I’m here?” She took a step backward, and realized her head was bare.
“The note was sent by our friend Fra Piero, the procurator,” the monk hurried to explain. “It doesn’t say where you are, only that you won’t be arriving for at least another night.”
“Then the procurator knows I’m here?” Lucrezia looked behind her, through the curtain that separated the bottega from the kitchen. She could see Rosina stoking the fire. She reached a hand up and grabbed the length of her hair, nervously twisting it into a knot. “I asked you to speak of this to no one.”
“Fra Piero is a trusted friend, mia cara, and he agrees we must protect you from the prior general. When Saviano leaves the Valenti home, of course you will go there.”
Lucrezia looked away, wrapping the knot of her hair more tightly.
“The prior general misunderstood,” the monk began. He faulted himself for allowing Saviano to bully his way into the bottega and then leave with wrongful assumptions. “He saw the painting of the Adoring Madonna, and the robes you wore while I worked, and he misunderstood.”
“I’m ashamed.” Lucrezia dropped her voice. “He thinks I’ve given away my purity. Please, Fratello, you have to tell him it’s not so.”
“I told him quite insistently, Sister Lucrezia. But he’s not a man who listens to reason.” From where he stood, Fra Filippo could see the vellum on which he’d drawn her face, the studies he’d made for her likeness on the Medici panel. His pen, he saw, did her justice. “In time, the work which you’ve helped me create will be finished, God willing. When the altarpiece is received and praised in Naples, the prior general will understand his error.”
“And until then?”
“Until then, you’re under the protection of the procurator. A note signed by him gives full sway over any instruction you have from the prioress.”
“It isn’t proper,” Lucrezia insisted quietly. “You know I can’t be here alone with you.”
Fra Filippo’s face darkened.
“Of course I’ve taken this into consideration,” he said. “Rosina will stay until Spinetta can come. It’s only for a day or two, until the prior general is gone.”
“Under what claim will you send for my sister?”
“The procurator has already sent for her. He wrote to Prioress Bartolommea, asking that Spinetta be permitted to join you at the de’ Valenti palazzo. But of course he will see that she is brought here, where the two of you will stay under my protection. I’m the chaplain of the convent, and there’s room enough in my small home for us to keep separate quarters. Everything is completely proper.”
“So much deception,” Lucrezia said. “It’s sinful.”
“The first sin comes from the prior general,” the painter said. “When he’s gone, you will carry on with your business, and none will be the wiser. What else can you do, Sister Lucrezia, given his reprehensible behavior? Here, no one will know where you are, and you will be safe.”
Lucrezia gave a small nod. It seemed the monk knew what must be done, and had taken charge of everything.
“As long as Spinetta is coming soon,” she said. “As long as I’m not here alone with you, Fra Filippo.”
The monk nodded brusquely. Above all, he wanted Lucrezia to know he would protect her honor. He moved to the panel with the figure of the kneeling Madonna, and pretended to study it.
“I’ll need to work while you’re here, of course.” From the corner of his eye he saw Lucrezia’s gaze roaming the studio, her hands pulling at her knotted hair. “Please, Sister Lucrezia, cover your head and you’ll feel more comfortable.”
Alone in the bedchamber, Lucrezia used the painter’s basin to rinse her face. Checking the door, she removed her robe and stood in the silken panni di gamba, washing quickly with a rag and remembering how kind Sister Pureza had been to let her keep the undergarments. Slipping her robe back on, she combed her hair with her fingers, and wound it back under her wimple, securing it carefully. Her boots were not in the chamber, and so she went back into the kitchen, bare feet padding against the straw scattered across the floor.
“Sorella, I’ve just cleaned your boots, let me get them for you,” Rosina exclaimed. She ducked through the door of the kitchen and returned with the boots. When Lucrezia returned to the bottega her wimple was in place, all of her lovely yellow hair tucked away, and the painter was at his table looking at a small sketch. He spoke without looking up at her.
“Do you know the story of Saint Stephen’s life?” he asked. “It was fraught with suffering and doubt, but it was a colorful life, and an exciting one.”
The painter pointed to his sketch as he described the scenes he was re-creating in the chapel frescoes.
“There’s the stoning of the saint,” he said, indicating the group of men with their arms in the air, the cowering figure of the saint in a corner of the sketch. “And there’s his funeral, with his disciples kneeling by his corpse.”
Lucrezia had shown great interest in his work, and a fine understanding of art and beauty. As long as she was here, Fra Filippo wanted to share his knowledge with her.
“When I paint the funeral I have to think of all the sad things I’ve known in my life,” he explained. “I have to pour every sorrow and every moment of lost faith into the piece. It’s the only way to show the humanity of the saint’s life.”
The novitiate turned to him, her face registering surprise.
“When have you lost faith, Brother Filippo?”
“There are dark moments in every life, Sister Lucrezia. You’re still young, but in time you’ll understand.”
“I’m not as young as you might believe,” she said. “Since losing my father, I’ve aged a great deal. At least, that’s how I feel.”
She made a gesture with her arm, and the sleeve of her robe lifted to reveal the bruises. The monk put a hand out as if to touch her, but she pulled away.
“Tell me about the life of Saint Stephen,” she said quickly. “Please.”
Fra Filippo cleared his throat and found the voice that he used during worship, speaking in a tone that was both warm and commanding.
“He was the first martyr,” the monk said quietly. “But after his death he saw the Father and the Son. That was his reward for suffering in good faith.”
He brought Saint Stephen’s life into clear relief, culling facts and stories from his many hours of study. He recounted the saint’s trial for blasphemy, his public stoning, the scene of his magnificent funeral. When he’d clarified for himself the images that he wanted to capture, Fra Filippo shuffled through his parchments and spread the largest one across his oak table. He anchored it in place and silently, almost with his eyes closed, sketched the general outlines of the scenes and indicated in his rough handwriting what he would place within each frame.
Lucrezia sat on a stool and watched his fluid movements, the way he fell into the dream of his work and seemed to forget everything: the sounds of activity in the piazza beyond the curtained window, even her very presence in the studio. Her father had been the same, capable of submerging himself in a book of figures, or drawings and colors, emerging hours later as if he had been in a distant place that was closed to her. But in the bottega, she didn’t feel far from the painter. Somehow she felt she understood what he was doing as his hand flew across the parchment, making deft strokes and scribbling notes on the margins.
With a few final marks he’d completed two new figures, their heads perfect ovals, their robes flowing in sinuous arabesques. Then Fra Filippo stood, propping the large parchment against the wall, and stepped away to study what he’d done.
“Bene,” he noted with satisfaction. He drank from the ceramic jug and held the wine out to her. She shook her head.
“I remember, in the confessional, how you gave me permission to seek beauty,” Lucrezia said, forcing out the words she’d been rehearsing in her head. “I can’t tell you how that lightened my heart. I’m very grateful to you, Fratello.”
The monk smiled and they looked at each other until Lucrezia turned away.
“And of course, I am most grateful for your protection,” she said.
In the de’ Valenti palazzo, Prior General Saviano woke from a long night of celebratory eating and drinking and joined Ottavio in his dining chamber. They took a leisurely meal together, and the prior general asked the merchant about his position concerning the politics in Rome, the illness that was reportedly consuming Pope Callistus III, and whom he supported as the next pope.
“I favor the Archbishop of Rouen,” said Saviano. “I do not believe the Medici should control all of Florence and the seat of Rome as well.”
“But think of Piccolomini’s diplomatic skills,” argued de’ Valenti. “Certainly the Bishop of Siena will do more for us than d’Estouteville can, coming from Rouen.”
Prior General Saviano frowned and de’ Valenti, ever the gracious host, offered his guest more wine, and then changed the subject.
“I pray, Your Grace, you might visit my son in his chambers,” the merchant said. “A final blessing, before you return to Florence?”
Agreeing, Prior General Saviano followed his host through the piano nobile, up the main stairway graced with tapestries and frescoes depicting scenes from the Old Testament. Ottavio greeted his wife’s many attendants with a gracious air of indulgence, and they parted to let him pass. At the entrance to her birthing chamber, the merchant paused in front of the portrait he had commissioned for his wife, and gestured to Fra Filippo’s painting. But it was unnecessary. The Virgin’s face had already caught the prior general’s eye.
“Ottavio, can you explain this?” Saviano asked in a low rumble. “This is the novitiate from the convent.”
De’ Valenti nodded, and rested his hands on his full belly.
“I’ve only seen the novitiate once, Your Grace, but I can tell you the picture barely does her beauty justice.” Ottavio clapped a silk-covered arm around the shoulder of his guest. “Teresa claims the painting has holy powers. She believes it is the girl herself who kept her alive on the night my son was born. Everyone in my house is calling this piece our Miraculous Madonna.”
De’ Valenti pushed his berretto up on his head and scratched at his temple.
“My wife has given me four daughters and three heirs, but the devil took each of my sons before his first earthly breath. Only this one survives, and if my wife believes there was a miracle in her birthing chamber, who am I to deny it?”
Making his way into his wife’s private apartment, Ottavio de’ Valenti found Teresa propped on many plush pillows. He kissed her cheek, and she greeted him fondly.
“Ottavio, didn’t you send for the novitiate?” she asked. “I thought she was to arrive last night.”
“I wrote immediately to the prioress.” The merchant knelt at his wife’s bedside and took her hands in his own. “This morning we received word that she is delayed. But it’s only for a day or two. Then she’ll be here with you.”
Behind him, Prior General Saviano screwed up his face. He’d expressly said the girl was not to leave the convent.
“The novitiate? The Virgin of the painting is to come here?”
Teresa de’ Valenti smiled and nodded.
“My husband is good to me. He’s good to all of us. The Lord has given us many blessings, and now we have our own Miraculous Madonna. It is a blessed omen that she is here among us, don’t you agree, Prior General Saviano?”
Please, Fra Filippo, don’t let me keep you from your work,” Lucrezia said after their moment had passed. “I’m content to sit and watch, especially if you have something to keep my hands busy.”
Fra Filippo’s eyes fell upon the lavender he’d taken from the convent garden two weeks earlier. The flowers had dried, and could be ground to make fragrant oil.
Gathering the herbs and a wooden bowl and pestle, the monk settled Lucrezia at his table, where she nimbly separated the kernels as he talked about his plans for the frescoes.
“There’s also the life of Saint John the Baptist, who is the patron saint of the wool guild in Prato,” he said. “I’ll show his birth, his parting from his parents, and the banquet when his head is brought to King Herod on a platter. Many church patrons have paid to have their likenesses among the faces at Herod’s banquet. It’s said that when a patron is depicted in a painting that serves God’s glory, it takes him one step closer to heaven’s gate.”
His voice trailed off, and Fra Filippo turned to his fresh parchment, imagining where he might place the faces and bodies of the banquet revelers. As she sifted through the lavender, the colorful grains falling easily from the stems, Lucrezia wondered if her likeness as the Virgin Mary also brought her closer to heaven’s gate.
“Do the paintings act as an absolution?” she asked softly. “Is that why the patrons are brought closer to heaven when they’re depicted in your work?”
Absently, the monk answered.
“Si, si. A man may pay the church for forgiveness of a sin already committed, or become a patron and earn leniency for future transgressions. At least”—he glanced sideways at her—“at least, that’s what they say in Rome.”
Lucrezia thought about his reply, and wondered if Fra Filippo might agree to paint Spinetta’s face in one of his fresco scenes. Spinetta wasn’t a sinner, but it couldn’t hurt to have extra assurance of God’s good favor.
“It is past Sext,” Fra Filippo said after a time. “You must be hungry.”
The two had a light meal of bread and cheese in the kitchen. Rosina poured them each a cup of watery wine, and tidied up the hearth as they ate in strained silence.
“If there’s nothing else, Fratello, my mother needs me at home,” Rosina said after she’d wiped their small plates.
Lucrezia looked up in alarm.
“Of course.” Fra Filippo stood and brushed the crumbs from his hands. “And I must go to the chapel to check on the progress there.” He reminded Rosina to be sure her brother had gone to the convent and delivered the procurator’s message.
“Yes, Fra Filippo,” the girl replied, “my brother has done as you asked.”
“Si, he’s a good boy.” The painter removed a silver coin from a jar on the shelf, and slipped it into her hand. “Bring your mother something from the market.”
“Molte grazie.” The girl pressed her cheek against his hand, bowed to Lucrezia, and slipped out the door.
It was still early afternoon. Standing in the doorway to the antechamber, Fra Filippo turned to Lucrezia.
“I’ll work in the chapel until the light fades,” he said stiffly. “Please pass the time as you like, and I won’t bother you again until dusk. By then I trust Spinetta will have arrived.”
After he’d gone, Lucrezia moved restlessly around the studio. She lifted a sheet and saw a darkly painted pietà, the face of the Virgin taut and gray. Lifting another cloth draped over a large panel, she found a kind-faced friar with a halo above his head. When she couldn’t make out his identity, she dropped the sheet and picked up a pile of parchments. She turned them over and found her own likeness looking back at her. It was her face, her cheeks, her eyes. Yet by the monk’s hand she’d become something precious and holy. She’d become the Madonna, the Blessed Mother.
Spinetta had said the likeness was flattering, but Lucrezia wanted to see for herself if this was true. Although she’d worn splendid dresses, and been adorned with delicate bende made by the finest weavers in Florence, here in Prato she’d been told for the first time that she was a beautiful woman. She couldn’t help but wonder what changes showed now, in her face. Her eyes moved quickly across the monk’s cluttered worktable, sure that there would be a reflective surface among his many tools.
The monk wasn’t a tidy man, and his table was piled with many instruments. She reached over a cluster of large vessels and pots toward a glass canister near the wall, and her sleeve caught on a paintbrush, tipping a jar of color. Lucrezia cried out and jerked her arm back. But instead of steadying the container she upset another, which tipped into a bowl of paint.
She jumped back, but it was too late. The viscous liquid streaked down her robe from waist to knee, and it smelled of rotten eggs.
Lucrezia grabbed a crumpled rag, but wiping at the verdaccio only smeared it further. She tried water, but it beaded up on the oily surface of the paint. Lemon did the same, and wine vinegar bubbled and turned the green mess into brown and purple the color of an old bruise.
When it was clear the thick paint wasn’t lifting, Lucrezia remembered that Fra Filippo used ammonia to clean his brushes. She bent to the low shelf where she knew he kept the flask, and carefully removed the stopper. The sharp odor burned her eyes. Looking quickly around the workshop, assured that no one passing by could look in and spy her, Lucrezia slipped the robe over her head and stood in her undergarments. She laid the robe onto the floor, where she could be sure nothing else would spill on it, and blotted the black fabric with the foul-smelling ammonia. But instead of lifting the color, it seemed to suck away the pigment. The robe was ruined.
Surveying the sloppy mess she’d made, she thought bitterly of the beautiful dress she’d worn on the day she left her home. Lucrezia replaced the stopper in the flask, returned the ammonia to the shelf, and went into the kitchen, where a bucket of water sat on the floor beside the fireplace. Wearing only her wimple and her panni di gamba, Lucrezia knelt, dipped the rag in the bucket, and dabbed furiously at the green splotches and grayish pools of color where the ammonia had leached the dye from the fabric.
The terrible smell made her dizzy. Sitting back on her heels, she fingered the hem of her silken chemise, where she’d secreted her medallion before giving it to her sister, and wished she had it now. Her eyes were closed when the knock came, three quick taps that she barely heard before the door opened and the wind came in with the imperious figure of Prior General Saviano.
“Brother Painter,” he cried into the bottega, his voice a mockery. “Frate Dipintore, I wonder if you can solve a mystery for me?”
Lucrezia pushed her slight figure into the small space behind the kitchen doorway.
“Is anyone here?” The prior general’s voice brayed in unison with his horse, which neighed at the post outside the doorway.
He clomped through the bottega, treading across the splattered green paint. He would tell the painter that he was forbidden to paint Sister Lucrezia’s likeness again, and then he would go directly to the convent where he would upbraid the insolent prioress for disobeying his explicit orders that the novitiate not leave the convent.
“Fra Filippo,” he called in a snarl.
His temples pulsed and his boots made wet footprints as he entered the kitchen and spotted the crumpled robe, and then the small toes of Lucrezia’s stocking-covered feet. He turned slowly to his left, and Saviano’s heart began to pound when he saw her figure, crouched behind the door. His eyes climbed up the coil of Lucrezia’s body, taking in her white silk undergarments, her bare arms. Stepping closer, he put a hand out and touched her wrist. She flinched.
“Sister Lucrezia!” His lips were tight. He looked right and left, around the small kitchen. “Why are you here?” he demanded.
Lucrezia didn’t speak. Her eyes burned and brimmed with tears.
“Where is the monk? Are you alone?” The prior general’s gaze changed from angry to bright as he took in the gravity of their circumstance. “You don’t need to hide, my dear.” He wrapped his long fingers around her arm, and pulled her from behind the doorway. “Come here, let me see what the monk has done to you.”
“No.” Lucrezia’s lips tried to form words, but no sound came. She lowered her eyes and resisted as the prior general pulled her into the center of the kitchen. Holding her with a strong grip, he reached for her chin with his other hand. Her heart sank, and she trembled. She willed herself to move away, but her feet wouldn’t obey.
“You know how beautiful you are,” Prior General Saviano said.
She thought of Daphne, the Greek maiden who’d turned into a tree so Apollo couldn’t have her body, and Lucrezia stood still as a tree as the prior general roughly ran his thumb along her chin and tugged at the brim of her wimple. He pushed it back, then tugged it off, letting a long piece of hair spill out from under her hairnet. He fingered it gently.
“The devil has made your beauty bewitching,” Saviano said. He held her arm tightly with one hand, and used the other to trace the bone up to her cheek, past her tiny earlobe, down the length of her white neck.
She could hardly breathe.
“Bewitching.” His voice was husky. “Beautiful, bewitching Lucrezia. This is how the painter touches you, isn’t it?”
Lucrezia’s eyes moved toward the doorway. Where was Spinetta?
“He doesn’t,” she said weakly. “He doesn’t touch me.”
“You’re lying.” The prior general’s voice was low but harsh, and drops of spittle sprayed her cheek. “But your lies won’t do you any good.”
Under his robes, the general felt his lust fueled by envy and anger. Why should the painter take liberties of the flesh while he did not? Why should he deny himself when the girl had already compromised her virtue and given the sweetest bit of it to Lippi?
He clamped her hair firmly, locking her in his grip. Lucrezia felt his cold hand reach up and pull at the silken bloomers, the panni di gamba she’d sewn in her father’s home. The cloth ripped away as if there had been nothing there but cloud and air.
“Don’t fight me,” he said gruffly, his breath hot on her face. “Give me what you’ve given to the painter.”
He pushed her backward, lifting her off the ground and pinning her against the kitchen table. Lucrezia could smell onions and cheese on his breath. Her stomach was on fire, her body was numb. His hips pressed against her from the front, the wood table cut into her back. Breathing loudly, he pulled his robes up and fumbled under them, then roughly parted her legs. Lucrezia squeezed her eyes shut as he pressed between her thighs. There was a chafing, a dry heat, and she felt herself tear in two as he thrust harder, deeper. She cried out. Her head snapped back and hit the table, and she bit down on her lip and tasted blood. The prior general grunted loudly, the sound of an animal roared in her ear, and he thrust furiously until he shuddered, and for a moment everything in the room was still.
Then he reached between them to separate his body from hers, and when his hand came up wet and rusty with the smear of new blood, his eyes widened. He cried out a final time.
“You were—” He couldn’t bring himself to say the words.
Lucrezia turned away and covered herself with her bare arms. The cleric stood upright and when he didn’t reach for her again, she pushed past him into the monk’s bedroom, slamming the door and falling against it onto the ground, sobbing.
In the kitchen, the prior general wiped the blood and his seed on the hem of his black robe. He folded himself back into his undergarment, and looked around at the disheveled studio. Without another word, he turned and left.
Fra Filippo took a last look at the sketches he’d made on the plastered walls in Santo Stefano, brushed the red chalk from his palms as best he could, and said good night to his assistants as dusk fell. Looking behind him at the stained-glass windows of the church, he felt wonderfully happy. It had been a fine day’s work, but all afternoon his mind had been in the bottega with Lucrezia. How lovely it was to have her there, even if only for a day or two. He knew she’d be in nuns’ robes, but when he thought of her, he pictured her wearing the silk dress of morello purple, the benda sewn with small pearls.
He went out of his way to stop at the baker for two sweet rolls, one each for Lucrezia and Spinetta, before turning for home. As he hurried back across the piazza he saw that his bottega windows were dark. He reprimanded himself for failing to show Lucrezia where to find the candles and lantern, and quickened his pace until his steps crunched on the gravel in the walkway and he pushed the door open, calling her name.
There was no reply. He fumbled in the darkness, the smell of ammonia and something else burning his throat.
“Sister Lucrezia?” He felt a sudden alarm at the strange smells, the slick dampness under his feet as he reached for the candle on the worktable and sparked a match.
The flame flared. He held the candle high to see around the studio.
“Sister Lucrezia? Sister Spinetta?”
Wildly, he thought Lucrezia might have run off, leaving behind her nun’s robe and slipping away in the silk costume he kept in his chest. Pausing at the wooden chest, he lifted the lid to see the purple and blue silks folded carefully in their place. A chill went through him. He parted the curtain and stepped into the kitchen, his boot skidding on a lump of black fabric, his eyes and nose pierced by the stink of ammonia and something foul and unfamiliar. He reached down and recognized the cloth as Lucrezia’s convent robe. Next to it, like the soul of its dark shadow, he saw the torn silk undergarment. As he bent to touch it, a sob came from the bedroom.
“Dear God.” He nearly wept the two words. “Dear God.” Quickly, he pushed against the door and into the room, holding the candle high.
“Lucrezia!”
Her immobile form was curled on the bed, wrapped in a blanket. At the sound of his footfall and his voice, Lucrezia cried out.
“Go away,” she sobbed, curling into herself. Fra Filippo imagined the worst. The face of a whore in Venice, her cheeks and nose disfigured with angry slashes, came into his mind.
“What is it?” He fell to his knees at the bedside, put the candle on the floor. “What’s happened? Tell me what happened to you.”
Her sobs were her only answer. She couldn’t imagine what words she could use to tell him such a terrible thing.
The monk’s hand touched her shoulder. She flinched, but didn’t move away. Her body was numb.
“Please, let me see you. Let me see your face, Lucrezia.” Every bit of love and tenderness the monk had been hiding came out in the way he spoke her name. He didn’t care anymore. In his heart he prayed, Please, God, let her be all right and I’ll do whatever I must to protect and love her.
He dared to touch her hair, to lift the wet tangles from her face. She turned her body away, but let him see her hot cheek. It was unmarked.
“All this, for a ruined robe?” he asked gently.
“Not a ruined robe,” she managed to choke out. “It’s me. I am ruined. I’m ruined.”
He pushed her hair from her neck, and saw the angry scratches.
“What’s this?” His anger rose. “Did you go out? Did something happen in the street?”
“No.” She rolled her body away from him. “The prior general,” she said, and her weeping took away the rest of her words.
In an instant, Fra Filippo knew what it was that he smelled in the small chamber, mixed with the sour odor of ammonia and blood. And he knew what had happened.
“Prior General Saviano did this?”
Lucrezia’s hands flew to cover her ears.
“Don’t say his name,” she cried. She began to shiver. “I’m cold,” she whispered. “Very cold.”
Realizing she was naked beneath his blankets, Fra Filippo reached his strong arms under her small body, wrapped the blankets around her tightly, and lifted her from the bed. She felt herself rise, and for a moment she was terrified that she would fall, fall and never stop. She clung to his shoulders.
“Let’s get you warm,” he said. Her face was very close to his. He could see everything now, the wound on her bottom lip, the bruise against her left eye, the wet matting of her hair. “Let me take care of you.”
She closed her eyes. The monk carried her to the kitchen, and gently placed her in the heavy chair next to the hearth. He piled several pieces of kindling and wood onto the smoldering embers, and fanned them until a small flame caught. He did everything without moving more than an arm’s length from her.
“Where’s my sister?” she asked solemnly. The fire roared at his back, throwing an orange light across her face. “Is she not coming? Have you lied to me?”
“I promise you, Lucrezia, I haven’t lied to you. I’d never lie to you.”
Her gaze, filled with such pain and longing, released something inside the painter.
“I couldn’t lie to you, Lucrezia.” He reached a hand out as if to take her chin in his palm, just as she’d imagined he might. “I love you.”
Her eyes widened.
“I speak the truth, more than any other truth I’ve ever known. I love you. I nearly told you so in the confessional, Lucrezia. I’d rather die than see you suffer, I love you—I’m so sorry I left you here alone.”
Lucrezia pushed away his hand and put her palm to her mouth.
“Why are you saying this now, Fra Filippo? Why now that I’m ruined?”
His blue eyes blazed.
“You aren’t ruined, Lucrezia. Your purity isn’t lost unless you surrender it willingly.” Drawing on the words of Saint Augustine, he tried to offer her comfort. “Chastity is a virtue of the mind as well as the body. It’s not lost if you don’t yield willingly. Saint Augustine said it in Rome, it’s what the Order teaches.”
She wanted to believe what he was saying, but she couldn’t.
“You said it yourself, Fra Filippo. You said it’s my face, you said—” The prior general’s words came back and she covered her face with her hands. “Even he said the devil made me beautiful, that’s what he said.”
Fra Filippo shook his head.
“Your beauty is a gift from God,” he said. “God damn the prior general. And damn the Church that’s made of arrogant men like him.”
“Stop it, stop it,” Lucrezia cried. “Stop saying such things.”
The monk tried to pull her close but she turned away.
Fra Filippo found the thick white robe he wore in the coldest winter months and brought it to her. He poured a bowl of water from the cistern and handed her a clean linen cloth.
“Mia cara, you must wash yourself, please,” he said. “Call to me when you’re finished.”
Alone by the fire, Lucrezia gingerly touched the moist cloth to the place where she’d been torn. She didn’t look down at her body, but kept her eyes steady on the ground. When she was finished, she pulled on the robe. The monk’s garment fell far below her feet, and she tugged it up in a bulky drape, wrapping his rope belt twice around her waist. She combed out her hair and braided it as she’d done when she was a girl. She was sitting, waiting, when Fra Filippo came back into the room.
“How can I go back to the convent now?” she asked.
“Maybe there’s another way,” the monk said quietly. What had happened made no sense. It made no sense that she should be so beautiful, and so sad. It made no sense that he should love her as he did.
“And what if I’m to have his child?” A fresh sob escaped her throat.
“You won’t have his child,” Fra Filippo said. “I’ll send for Sister Pureza. She’ll know what to do.”
“No, you can’t tell anyone,” she cried. “If you do, he’ll speak against me, you know he will. Even powerful friends can’t protect a woman from the lies of a man like him.”
Fra Filippo had heard the tearful stories of many young women who’d lost their innocence in an act of violence, then lived in silence with the secret for just this reason.
“You’ll stay here,” the painter said. “You’ll stay with me and I’ll take care of you.”
“It’s impossible,” she said. “Don’t promise what can’t be.”
“But it can be, Lucrezia. Nothing is impossible if God wills it.” He took her cold hands and rubbed them between his warm palms.
“It’s wrong,” she cried.
Fra Filippo squatted so that they were face-to-face.
“What was done to you is wrong,” he said. “But not love. Love is never wrong.”
He looked at her steadily, and she began to weep.
“Will you pray for me, Fra Filippo?” she asked, falling on her knees. “It’s my fault, Fra Filippo. I don’t know what to do. Please pray for me.”