Monday of the Fourteenth Week After Pentecost, the Year of Our Lord 1457
Dawn was still far away when an invisible hand pulled the bell at the convent gate, but Sister Pureza was already awake, and listening. She rose quickly, her eyes scanning the dusty hall of the dormitory as she hurried into the cool night. The old nun heard the cows and pigs grunting in the dark barnyard, and snores greeted her as she rustled past the prioress’s private quarters.
At the gate, Sister Pureza slid open the small peephole.
“Who’s there?” She wasn’t surprised when her question was met with silence.
Sister Pureza turned the lock and opened the gate. There was a basket on the flagstone step, and in it lay an infant wrapped in a blanket. The old nun looked right and left, but whoever had delivered the child had vanished. Dawn was breaking in a dim line on the horizon as the baby let out a weak cry.
The midwife heard softly padding footsteps, and turned to see Lucrezia approaching.
“Mio bambino.” Lucrezia pushed past Sister Pureza and fell to her knees. She lifted the child into her arms and held him tightly. He smelled of milk and the cool mist of dawn.
“At last,” she cried, fumbling in the folds of the blanket to find his small hands. “He’s cold, Sister Pureza,” she exclaimed, laughing and weeping at once. “My little Filippino’s hands are cold.”
She pressed the child against her and rocked back and forth, falling immediately into the natural sway and rhythm of motherhood. Lucrezia had no doubt: the Great Mother had protected her child, heard her prayers, and returned her son to her.
“Thank you, Blessed Mother. Thank you,” she said.
But Sister Pureza was not so easily satisfied. Locking the convent gate, she gently reached for the baby.
“What is it?” Lucrezia’s voice rose to a high pitch. “You can’t have him, Sister Pureza. He’s mine. The Virgin returned him to me.”
“Hush, hush, it’s all right, Lucrezia. I just want to be sure it’s your son.”
“Of course it’s my son, the Virgin sent him, it’s the miracle we prayed for.”
“Yes, of course,” Sister Pureza said as she stroked the young woman’s damp hair. “There’s a mark, Lucrezia. The Lord gave your child a birthmark, so you might always know him, wherever he was sent.”
Lucrezia’s grip loosened a small bit. “If it’s a boy, it must be Filippino,” she insisted, her eyes clouding. “It must be him.”
Opening the child’s blanket without taking him from Lucrezia’s arms, Sister Pureza pushed the folds to one side. The baby wore a cloth wrapped around his bottom. She loosened the knots and turned him over.
“Yes.” She bared the small red cross so that Lucrezia could see it. “This is your son. The Virgin of the Sacra Cintola has indeed returned him to you.”
When Fra Piero came to the infirmary at Prime, the baby was at Lucrezia’s breast. She made a small effort to cover herself, but was too peaceful and delirious to be unduly modest.
“Please tell Fra Filippo.” Her voice was thick. “Tell him the Virgin Mother has returned the child to me, and the Lord has marked him with the sign of His blessing.”
She smiled gently, her face glowing. The child was warm in the crook of her arm, his body nestled against hers, the skin of her breast and the plump warmth of his cheek pressed together as one. She put a finger against the baby’s damp palm and Filippino wrapped his hand around it, the translucent fingernails pumping with his blood. His eyes were shut, his cheeks filling and emptying, his lips pursed with the steady work of suckling. His eyelids, moist and purple, fluttered as he broke his mouth from her nipple. Lucrezia turned her blue eyes away from the infant, and sought the procurator’s.
“Fra Piero,” she said. “Please ask Filippo to come and take us home.”
For at least the tenth time, Mother Bartolommea looked through the basket that had been left outside the convent gate. She shook her head, and muttered to Sister Camilla.
“There must have been some gold, something in the basket, a sign of gratitude from the Virgin,” she said. “The child entered the world here, we gave his mother shelter, we’ve endured the anger of the provost and the prior general.”
The prioress shivered at the thought of Prior General Saviano. What would he say when he heard the infant had been returned to Lucrezia and the two of them were here together, against his direct wishes?
“Sister Camilla,” she called with certainty. “The prior general has been very clear. He doesn’t want the child here on the consecrated grounds of the Order.”
Sister Camilla’s nose was bright red. Prioress Bartolommea looked at it twice. She certainly hoped the secretary wasn’t moved by the return of the child, or sympathetic to Lucrezia’s foolish plight.
“The mother and child must go,” the prioress said. “As soon as they’re able. There’s no place for fornicators in our midst, Sister Camilla.”
“What about our altarpiece, Prioress?”
The prioress blinked and reached for her spectacles. She thought she saw a smirk on Sister Camilla’s face.
“It’s already begun,” she said. She fumbled for a parchment which she unrolled and held up to the sister with a flourish. “The painter has agreed in writing. It’s as good as a contract.”
In his friend’s modest house beyond the city walls, Fra Filippo stepped back and looked at the two works he’d propped against the wall. One was the prepared poplar with the detailed sketch for the convent’s altarpiece; the other was the Adoring Madonna for the Medici.
He’d spent the better part of the last two days hiding from Cantansanti and sketching out the piece for the convent, with the Blessed Virgin handing the Sacra Cintola to Saint Thomas. He knew the altarpiece would be beautiful, the Virgin in a mandorla against a teal sky, Saint Thomas kneeling at her feet with his hands holding the green and golden belt. The prioress would be present, too, as she had to be, her pinched features and clenched hands stark against the black robe as she, too, knelt at the feet of the Virgin beside Saints Margaret, Gregory, Augustine, and two others. The Virgin, in whose honor he’d labored on the piece, would be spectacular. And Saint Margaret, namesake of the convent, would bear the lovely countenance of Lucrezia.
The plans for this piece had excited him at first, as he’d poured his penitent prayers to the Virgin into its design. But now, his eyes kept returning to the Medici’s Adoring Madonna. He couldn’t hide from the emissary for much longer.
Bowing his head, Fra Filippo leaned closer to study his lovely Virgin kneeling in the woods. She had Lucrezia’s face, the purple morello of the robe and the benda of delicate pearls she’d worn that first day she’d come to his bottega. The Virgin smiled softly as she adored her Child and all the light of the world seemed caught beneath her glowing skin. In the depths, the elm tree held tight to its vine, and the forest floor was strewn with the most delicate violet blossoms.
Only the Child’s face was missing now.
A year ago, he’d longed to see the face of his Madonna, and God had shown it to him. Now, he longed for the face of his son. Ser Francesco could bring an army to his doorstep, he could beat him with his own hands, but as long as Lucrezia remained in the convent and his son was gone, Fra Filippo knew he would never be able to finish this altarpiece. He could not paint another infant until he saw the face of his own.
“Filippo, good news, praise God.”
The monk turned at the sound of his old friend at the doorway. Fra Piero’s face was ruddy, his crooked smile beaming.
“I’ve just come from the convent. Your son has been returned, strong and healthy—”
“Robusto? My son?” Fra Filippo wasn’t sure if he’d heard the procurator correctly. “My son is returned?”
“Si, today, just this morning mother and child are together.”
“I must see them, pronto.”
The monk began to push past the procurator, already imagining the blessed scene that awaited him at the convent.
“Stop.” The procurator put out his hand.
“Is something wrong?” Fra Filippo’s face darkened. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“The prioress will not allow you to take them away with everyone watching. You must wait till the festa, when Lucrezia and il bambino will be alone at the convent. Then you can bring them home.”
In a white robe that badly needed to be scrubbed and cleaned, Fra Filippo returned to his bottega. He wrapped his treasured works in an old curtain, and carefully stored the paintings and the newly sketched panel in a corner of the room, out of harm’s way. Then the monk walked out toward the Piazza Mercatale.
Even if he took Lucrezia and the child away from Prato, they’d still need many things, and soon: a cradle and some linens; a cushion for Lucrezia’s chair; a tiny piece of coral to hang around the baby’s neck to ward off evil spirits. Hoping his silver would buy these few things, the monk hurried along the streets, joining the crowds that had arrived in the city for the coming festa.
At the door of Santo Stefano, he entered the dusty light of the building and stopped at the locked gates to the Chapel of the Sacra Cintola. There, he fell to his knees. The Blessed Mother had done what they’d asked.
“Sancta Maria, Mother of God. I pledge myself to you.”
Feeling his vigor renewed, the monk prayed loudly and gestured exuberantly. When he was finished, he stood and brushed off the front of his robe. Glancing toward the cappella maggiore, where his assistants kept up their steady patter, he thought of the many days and long nights he had spent there in painful tribulation. The very space of the church now seemed transformed by his joy.
He felt himself pulled toward the frescoes, his attention riveted on the scene of Saint Stephen being switched at birth. His eyes moved over the green demon, to the balia in her orange robe, and came to rest on the sacra cerva, the holy deer that had suckled the infant saint and kept him alive, according to legend. The deer’s legs, beautifully folded under her, were still shining with the last layer of color he’d instructed his assistants to add.
“Grazie,” the painter whispered to the cerva. “Thank you for watching over my son.”
“Good maestro.” The voice was soft, but right behind him, in his ear. Fra Filippo turned. It was Young Marco. The boy had paint smudged on his cheek, a streak of brown the color of the deer’s fur. “Maestro, I’ve finished all that you asked, and hope you will look at what I’ve done, and tell me if it is good.”
The painter stared down at the boy, his eyes soft as the doe.
“Young Marco.” He spoke the garzone’s diminutive name for the first time. For the rest of his days, whenever he smelled the oil soap used to scrub church floors, he would remember this moment. “Si, Young Marco, it is good. What you have done is good.”
At dawn the next morning, Provost Inghirami was on his knees in his private chamber. The streets outside were quiet, but they wouldn’t be so for long. Pilgrims were arriving from as far south as Calabria and as far north as Piemonte, and a low buzz was filling the neighborhood around the church. Already it seemed the entire city had heard the rumors of the missing belt, and only his staunch denial, backed by the lies of the prior general who swore he’d seen it, had kept the priests of the church and the officials of the Comune di Prato at bay. Now, he’d run out of time. With the tolling of Terce tomorrow, the Festa della Sacra Cintola would begin, the streets would be swarming with horses, carriages, vendors, and traveling merchants, everyone praying and chanting and straining toward the Piazza della Pieve.
Provost Inghirami pictured the faces of the crowd turned up to the holy pulpit, waiting for him to appear with the Holy Belt. He cringed as he imagined their rising fury and jeers when he stood before them, the evidence of Satan’s work in Prato revealed by his empty hands.
Since dispatching his faithful messenger with a bag of gold and a note for the balia in the small village outside of Bisenzia, Provost Inghirami had been on his knees for nearly a full day and still there was no sign from the Holy Mother. What more did she want from him? He’d tried to make reparation. He’d heard the Virgin’s message and had the child returned to his mother’s waiting arms. But perhaps the Virgin was not yet ready to forgive. Perhaps she was upset because he’d defiled the house of God by stealing into the bell tower for the taste of things he had no right to know. Inghirami’s shoulders shook as he thought of the pleasure he’d found with the young painter.
“Dear Queen of Heaven,” the provost prayed in final desperation. “Dear Mother, I beg for your kindness and mercy for me, and for Young Marco.”
He bit his fist to keep from wailing. The name of Michael Dagomari was forever remembered in Prato as the man who’d brought the relic to their city for safekeeping, and now his own name, Gemignano Inghirami, would be remembered as the man whose sins had brought about this loss and disgrace.
At the first sound of the monks and archpriests in the sacristy stirring for Lauds, Provost Inghirami forced himself to his feet. In the event of the belt’s miraculous return, Santo Stefano had to be ready for the festa, and this job could be entrusted to no one but himself.
Everything was silent as he made his way into the nave just before daylight. The keys on his belt jangled against his hip, his footsteps echoed on the cool stones, and he turned to the gates of the Chapel of the Holy Belt. Just enough light streamed in from the small window for him to see the narrow lock, into which he inserted the key.
Please, Holy Mother, forgive my sins. The provost held his breath as he approached the golden coffer and gently lifted the lid.
It was still empty.
In vain, Inghirami reached into the box and ran his fingers around the velvet lining. When he still found nothing he shut and latched the box, closed the gate, and locked it again. The dimness of the church gave way as the provost moved through the transept toward the apse, where light was penetrating the darkness through a pair of arched windows. Two floating shafts of illumination crisscrossed in a corner of the church, and he squinted through the scrim of dawn to the statue of the Madonna. His gaze moved from her face, down her smoothly carved limbs, to the place where the light spilled below her waist.
Circling the hips of the Madonna was a green belt, its gold trim shimmering as if on fire.
Holding his breath, the provost hurried to the base of the statue. A spark went through him as he touched the belt, and he knew it was real. He was forgiven. The Sacra Cintola had been returned.