The Sixth Week of Easter, the Year of Our Lord 1457
Lucrezia was stitching a small sleeve onto an infant’s gown when the pain ripped across her belly. She cried out—but there was no one to hear her cry, and she was glad. It was only May. The child couldn’t come yet.
She pushed aside the pile of silk pieces, dropped her head between her legs, and lifted up her skirt. There was no water, no blood. Lucrezia gripped the edge of the table and panted.
“Not yet, God. Please, not yet,” she gasped.
The tightness pulled across her belly, expanding beneath her partum belt. Lucrezia reached for the belt she’d fashioned from soft leather, and loosened the laces. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed aloud.
“Mother Mary, give me strength,” she groaned, grabbing at a ream of blue silk. She’d been saving it for a special dress but now she put one end between her teeth and bit down to keep from screaming. She tasted the fabric and a vivid memory of her father’s robes flashed in her mind. She gnashed her teeth and writhed in the chair. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear it anymore, the pain stopped. Lucrezia lifted her head and blinked.
Outside her window, sun was sparkling on the road that opened to the Piazza della Pieve. The silk pieces cut for baby clothes were on the floor where she’d pushed them, together with the needle, thread, and sewing hoop.
Wiping her forehead with a rag, Lucrezia drank a cup of cool water from the cistern. Next to the hearth was the basket of delicacies Teresa de’ Valenti had sent that week, along with a note promising to send a midwife to Lucrezia when her time came. The signora hadn’t said whom she would engage, or how the midwife was to be sent for, and Lucrezia was sorry she’d waited so long to ask. For all of her careful praying, the cutting and sewing of the baby’s clothes, the drinking of herbs to ready her for labor, Lucrezia was alone and un-prepared. And the pains were strong. Strong enough that she feared her time was here.
When she could stand, Lucrezia gathered her cloak, prayer beads, and the soft yellow cotta da parto she’d nearly finished. She tidied everything as best she could, put the pile of necessities on the bed, slipped the circle of beads into her pocket next to the medallion of Saint John, and prepared to find Fra Filippo at the church. She was nearing the door when the pain came again, bringing her to her knees. It took several minutes to pass, and many more until she was able to look up and take a true breath.
She’d fallen at the foot of the Medici altarpiece, which stood on a large easel near the doorway. At first the image was unclear to her, but as the pain faded, the scene on the large panel came into focus. Her own likeness was at its center, but Lucrezia didn’t study her face. In the months of living with the painter, she’d tried not to look at the Virgin’s image and think of herself. Instead, she looked at the woods and flowers Fra Filippo had painted, pleased to see how much progress he’d made—not only in the Virgin’s swelling blue robes but in the sunlight that shone through transparent leaves in the field, and the light from the holy dove radiating across the kneeling Madonna.
Lucrezia’s gaze wandered to the panels that stood on the floor next to the easel, with their lifelike images of Saint Michael and Saint Anthony Abbott. The panels were finished, and she studied them closely for the first time, seeing Saint Michael’s armor pitted and gleaming with silver, the fine brown fabric of Saint Anthony’s costume, his clothing the same color as the earth.
“Per piacere,” she whispered to strong, gentle Saint Anthony Abbott, who knelt humbly on the ground. “Don’t let the child come now. Not yet.”
Even as she prepared for another wave of pain, she promised herself that she would do everything possible to keep the baby inside her until late June, so that Fra Filippo might claim the infant as his own.
After that day, Lucrezia moved about very little. She sat with her feet up on a stool with her face turned to the sun when it came in through the window on a right angle, a shawl around her shoulders when the sun fell below the city’s rooftops. Spring was everywhere, in the onion grass that grew along the paths in and out of Prato, in the mewl of new calves in a neighbor’s pen, and in the smell of freshly turned earth where the woolfullers’ wives hoed their modest gardens.
Lucrezia sat in the wooden chair by the hearth sewing and praying as the sun rose and fell. She had nothing to do but sew, and wait. And what she waited for—the child, word from Rome, a note of loving kindness from her sister at Santa Margherita—could not be rushed. She was in the chair when Ser Francesco arrived at the end of May to check on the Medici altarpiece, and she was there embroidering two silken panels of a pillow when the emissary came again in the heat of midday on the Feast Day of Saint Thomas the Apostle, in early July.
The smell of Ser Francesco Cantansanti’s horse outside the window turned Lucrezia’s stomach. She heard his boots hit the ground, and the clink of the harness as he tethered the horse. Ser Francesco paused at the doorway long enough to knock and call out, and then swept into the bottega without waiting for an answer. As he bowed to Lucrezia, his eye took a quick inventory of the rich cuts of silk cloth that filled the workshop.
“Fratello.” The emissary nodded, and stopped to study a sketch the painter had made for the design of the triptych frame.
“Ser Francesco,” the painter greeted the emissary warily. Cantansanti’s presence further taxed his time, and Fra Filippo was already spread thin. He reached for his jug of wine and stayed where he was.
“Are you still at work on the halo?” Cantansanti demanded when he saw the small brush the painter held to the panel, making tiny dots of color. “The halo was finished last week, Filippo. Why are you laboring over small details when there’s still so much to be done?”
“It is not as simple as it looks!” the painter snapped, but quickly softened his tone. “I must keep layering if we want the halo to shimmer like real gold. If King Alfonso is to be pleased, the work can’t be rushed.”
Wiping his brow, Fra Filippo thought recklessly of the altarpiece for the Arte del Cambio, which was due in one week’s time. Ser Francesco’s ever-watchful eye had diverted the painter from that work even as the Bankers’ Guild had sent their messengers twice more, demanding to see the progress he’d made. The answer, regrettably, was that he’d done little. The altarpiece needed to be done in a fury, or he would know the guild’s wrath.
With the Feast of Mary Magdalene only two days away—and the altarpiece more than a week late—the monk slipped out of bed before dawn. The heat was already unbearable. He put a cup of honeyed water and some bread by the bed, and brushed a kiss across Lucrezia’s damp forehead.
“I have to go to the chapel,” he said. “If Ser Francesco comes, tell him he can find me at Santo Stefano. I’m bringing the Medici pieces with me, so I can study them while I’m working.”
After making sure the paint on the Madonna’s halo was completely dry, he carefully wrapped the triptych panels in smooth cloth and piled them into his wagon along with three large pieces of poplar he’d cut for the Cambio’s altarpiece. Each blank panel was nearly as tall as he stood, and the central piece was wider than the spread of his arms.
In truth, Fra Filippo was bringing the Medici altarpieces with him so he might study the effects he’d achieved there and roughly replicate them on the panels for the Arte del Cambio. He had less than two days to pull together the triptych of the nursing Madonna surrounded by Saints Matthew and Peter. It wouldn’t be good but it would be big, and with a bit of the Virgin’s luck he thought that would more than satisfy the rough men of the guild.
When the bells of Nones rang that afternoon, Lucrezia’s fingers were deftly sewing a nightshirt for the baby. Nicola was across the table, eating one of the sweet rolls she’d brought from Signora de’ Valenti and laughing merrily at a story she was telling about the Valentis’ daughters.
“And the ducks chased the girl back to the water!” Nicola said. She was laughing heartily when Lucrezia heard footfalls and heavy breathing outside.
“Open the door, Filippo!” a gruff voice growled at the door.
It couldn’t be Cantansanti, Lucrezia knew, but she called his name anyway.
“Stop stalling, let us in.” A hand rattled the iron latch, the heavy wooden door banging against the frame.
Lucrezia stood, pressing her hands against the small of her back. Terrified, she stood in the antechamber and opened the door to find three men filling the doorway. Two were dressed in black, a third wore a red robe. She smelled wine, onion, and a spice she couldn’t recognize. Her stomach turned, the child kicked.
“We’re from the Bankers’ Guild,” said the shortest of the three, arms crossed in front of his chest. He had a dark beard that barely hid a long scar that sliced his cheek from eyebrow to chin. “Where’s the painter?”
“He’s not here.” She tried to keep herself calm, but the men’s anger was palpable. She felt her knees begin to buckle, and clung to the door.
“Get him,” the largest one said harshly. “Get. Him. Now.”
“Nicola,” Lucrezia called out to the servant. “Veloce, run and get Fra Filippo!”
She heard movement, and the servant brushed past her and the men, her feet moving nimbly down the pebbled path.
“He’ll be here,” Lucrezia said, avoiding the men’s eyes. She forced herself to stop shaking. “You only need to wait a few minutes.”
“We don’t like to wait,” the man in red said curtly. With a chopping gesture he moved her aside, and the three men entered the bottega. “We’ve been waiting for months. We’ve come for the altarpiece.”
Lucrezia looked at the man in panic. “The altarpiece? Are you from the Medici?”
“The Medici?” The men in black looked at each other and gave her a wily smile. “Yes, we’re here to fetch the Medici paintings. Give them to us.”
Lucrezia paled. The men spread across the room like a stain, their odor bringing up bile in her throat.
“Where’s the altarpiece? It was due yesterday.” The bearded man stopped at Fra Filippo’s table, scanned the drawings, and begin tearing them into uneven pieces.
“He’s been working on it,” she said, confused and dizzy. “Ser Francesco has been here almost every week. Surely you must know.”
“Olivio, it’s not nice to lie to a nun,” said the short man in red, putting a special emphasis on the word nun. He turned to Lucrezia. “We’re not the Medici, we’re from the Arte del Cambio. We’ve come for the commission.”
“The commission?” Lucrezia reached behind her, and fell back into a chair. “The commission?” she asked faintly.
“It’s late,” said one.
“But it’s not here, is it, Sorella? The painter’s been lying to us, hasn’t he?”
Lucrezia’s whole body froze. She looked wildly around the studio and then she remembered Filippo had taken the Adoring Madonna and the panels of the saints to the church, pulling them in a little cart.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said tearfully. “Please, ask Fra Filippo yourself, I’m sure he’ll give you what you want.”
“We’ve done that already. Either we get the altarpiece, or we take whatever we can. He owes us many florins.”
With his right arm, the tallest of the three knocked over a neat row of jars.
“Please be careful,” Lucrezia said faintly.
The short man opened a large black sack and began to dump chunks of pigment into it, while the other noisily stacked poplar and other wood panels by the door.
“These should bring something for our troubles,” he grumbled.
With a drunken stagger the short man fell against a stool, and it crashed to the ground. Paint splashed across Lucrezia’s robe and she ran into the kitchen, listening to the men trampling through the workshop.
“Please,” Lucrezia shouted. “Please be careful.”
She listened to the men cursing and laughing as they stomped in and out of the bottega, trampling her little garden and attracting the attention of the woolgatherers’ children, who stood around the house, their mouths open, watching.
“The gold must be somewhere,” she heard one of the men growl.
“He’s hidden it well, the bastard,” said another, as he flung the last pieces of wood onto the pile.
“Lucrezia?” Out of breath, Fra Filippo pushed through the men and strode through the messy bottega. “Lucrezia, are you all right?”
Her reply was drowned out by the men’s shouts as they swarmed him, the two in black grabbing his arms.
“Lucrezia?” He shouted her name again, struggling against the men’s rough grips. “Where is she?”
“She’s in the kitchen,” said the red-robed man in his clipped Milanese accent. “We’re not interested in your puttana, Brother. We’ve come for the altarpiece.”
“Bastards!” the monk shouted, kicking out with his heavy sandals. “Get out of here. Get out or I’ll kill you!”
The tallest of the three clenched his fist and swung up.
“The altarpiece, or the money,” he shouted as he struck the painter’s chin. Fra Filippo’s head snapped back. “We told you we aren’t patient men. Where’s the painting, eh, Fratello? Where is it?”
“I’m working on it,” Fra Filippo answered, his mouth bloodied.
“It’s too late. It should be done.”
“It’s at Santo Stefano,” he said, pushing out his chest. “Let me go and I’ll show it to you.”
“You’re lying. We’ve been there. We know there’s no panel for the Cambio.”
“You fools.” The painter pulled a hand free and struck out blindly. “You know nothing.”
The tall man laughed again, bending back Fra Filippo’s wrist until he cried out in pain.
“We know that artists who bed pretty nuns don’t keep their promises, we know that much.”
The painter roared against his captors, but they only held him tighter. The tall man landed a short blow to Fra Filippo’s right eye, another to his belly, then a third and a fourth in his gut. In a flash the monk remembered the gap between the memory of physical pain and its reality. A hard kick to his thigh, another blinding shock in his groin, and he fell to the floor, the men’s hard boots cracking into his ribs.
“Do you think the Bankers’ Guild runs on charity? We’ve been patient. You’re lucky we don’t break your arms.”
As he writhed in pain, they took Lucrezia’s silks, and a rough hand grabbed her yellow cotta da parto and wrapped it in a long bolt of blue silk.
“You filthy son of a begger, how dare you touch that dress!” Fra Filippo raged. There was a boot planted firmly on the small of his back but he arched himself up as high as he could, and swore as the man piled up all of the beautiful fabrics.
“I’ll kill you,” he raged. The man pressed his foot deeper into his back, and the monk couldn’t move. The man in red bent down, his face as red as his clothing, and spat his words at the painter.
“Finish it. Or I’ll kill you.”
It was the last thing Filippo heard before the left side of his head exploded in pain and his mind went blank.
Lucrezia waited until the men had retreated down the gravel path. When she was sure they’d gone, she stumbled across the rubble, locked the latch, and pushed the broken stool in front of the doorway. Then she sank down on the floor next to the motionless painter, and put her head on his breast to listen for a heartbeat. She touched Fra Filippo’s bloodied cheek, and she wept. But behind her tears there was anger, and despair.
“You didn’t tell me there was another commission,” she cried into Fra Filippo’s expressionless face. She held his head in her hands. “You lied to me, Filippo. You lied to me.”
Lucrezia stayed on the floor next to him, waiting for him to wake. She was tired. So very tired.
She woke in the dark, with sharp pains in her belly.
“Filippo, something’s wrong,” she cried, reaching out to shake his shoulder. “The baby, Filippo.” She called his name louder, and slapped at his cheek. He moved at last, slowly and with difficulty, and reached for her hand. It was freezing cold.
“I’m bleeding.”
Shaking the sleep and pain from his head, the painter groaned and rose to his knees. Lucrezia’s face was pale. She shifted her hips to the side, and he saw a small, dark stain on the floor.
“The baby, Filippo. The baby’s coming.”
The painter dragged himself to the kitchen hearth, where he moved aside the loose stone, and reached for his bag of florins. Thank God the bankers hadn’t found his gold.
“Filippo.” Lucrezia’s voice was panicked. “Hurry.”
The painter staggered to her side.
“I’ll get someone,” he said. “I’ll send word to Signora de’ Valenti, she’ll send the midwife.”
“No, there’s no time, Filippo. Please, take me to the convent. Sister Pureza will help me.”
The color was leaching from her face, and the smell of blood frightened him. Struggling to think clearly, he rushed into the dark street until he reached the fencemaker’s bottega. Under the moonlight, he saw the craftsman’s wagon hitched to his shack and heard the braying of the donkey behind the house. The sound of his footsteps roused the fencemaker, who appeared bleary-eyed at the window.
“For the love of God, let me have your cart and donkey tonight.”
His battered ribs pulsing with pain, Fra Filippo quickly yoked the donkey and hitched the cart. He led the animal back to his bottega, wrapped a blanket around Lucrezia, and carried her outside. He placed her gently in the back of the cart, using blankets and torn silk to cushion the hard wood.
Under the blanket, Lucrezia watched the stars over the rooftops and prayed. It was late July. She’d done what she’d wanted. She’d kept the child inside of her long enough to know that it belonged to Fra Filippo.