Читать книгу Painting Mona Lisa - Jeanne Kalogridis - Страница 13

VII

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As he stood beside Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli in the Duomo, Giuliano’s head was bowed. He was not a man who usually prayed: he had long ago come to the conclusion that religion was the invention of men, and that there could be no certainty when it came to the question of God. Unfortunately, the Church’s earthly power demanded that he keep up appearances, show the required reverence, make the required gestures.

But this morning, his desperation provoked him to speak silently to God, should He be there to listen. Giuliano silently confessed that over the years, he had been callous towards his lovers. He had abused his physical handsomeness and used it to dally with their affections; he had taken their adoration for granted and often dismissed them thoughtlessly. Now he was filled with remorse; he saw clearly the divine irony in the fact that he now had to suffer to have the one he truly loved. Even worse, his love caused her suffering.

He asked that God soften Lorenzo’s heart, or the Pope’s, or do whatever was necessary so that her misery might end.

God answered his prayer in unexpected fashion. The subtlest sound of metal sliding against leather made him glance upwards.

To his right, Baroncelli finished withdrawing his knife from its sheath, and by the time Giuliano had turned his head to stare at the weapon in amazement, Baroncelli was ready to strike.

The act occurred too swiftly for Giuliano to be frightened.

Instinctively, he backed away. A body pressed into him, so firm and so fast, there could be no doubt its owner was part of the conspiracy. Giuliano glimpsed a man dressed in the robes of a penitent – and then gasped at the cold, burning sensation of steel sliding into his back, into his right kidney.

He had been terribly wounded. He was surrounded by assassins, and was about to die.

The realizations did not distress him as much as the fact that he was trapped and unable to warn Lorenzo. Surely his brother would be the next target.

‘Lorenzo,’ he said emphatically, as Baroncelli’s knife came flashing down, the blade reflecting a hundred tiny flames from the candles on the altar. But his utterance was drowned out by Baroncelli’s panicked, nonsensical cry: ‘Here, traitor!’

The blow caught Giuliano between his uppermost pair of ribs. There came the dull crack of bone, and a second spasm of pain so intense, so impossible, it left him breathless.

Baroncelli’s clean-shaven face, so close to Giuliano’s own, was gleaming with sweat. He grunted with effort as he withdrew the knife from Giuliano’s chest; it came out whistling. Giuliano fought to draw another breath, to call out Lorenzo’s name again; it came out less audible than a whisper.

In the space of a heartbeat, Giuliano remembered with exquisite clarity an incident from childhood: at age six, he had gone with Lorenzo and two of his older sisters, Nannina and Bianca, for a picnic on the shores of the Arno. Attended by a Circassian slave woman, they had travelled by carriage across the Ponte Vecchio, the bridge built a millennium before by the Romans. Nannina had been captivated by the goldsmiths’ shops that lined the bridge; soon to be married, she was already interested in womanly things.

Lorenzo had been restless and glum. He had just begun to take on Medici responsibilities; the year before, he had begun receiving letters asking for his patronage, and their father, Piero, had already sent his eldest son to Milan and Rome on politically-motivated trips. He was a homely boy, with wide-set slanting eyes, a jutting jaw, and soft brown hair that fell in neatly-trimmed fringe across a pale, low forehead; yet the sensitive intelligence that shone in those eyes made him oddly attractive.

They made their way to the pastoral neighbourhood of Santo Spirito. Giuliano recalled tall trees, and a sweeping grass lawn that sloped down to the placid river. There, the slave woman set a linen cloth on the ground and brought out food for the children. It was late spring: warm with a few lazy clouds, though the day before it had rained. The River Arno was quicksilver when the sun struck it, leaden when it did not.

Lorenzo’s sullenness that day had made Giuliano sad. It seemed to him that their father was too intent on making Lorenzo an adult before his time. So, to make him laugh, Giuliano had run down to the riverbank, gleefully ignoring the slave’s outraged threats, and stomped, splashing, into the water fully clothed.

His antics worked; Lorenzo followed him in laughing, tunic, mantle, slippers and all. By this time, Nannina, Bianca, and the slave were all shouting their disapproval. Lorenzo ignored them. He was a strong swimmer, and soon made his way quite a distance from the shore, then dove beneath the waters.

Giuliano followed tentatively, but being younger, fell behind. He watched as Lorenzo took a great gulp of air and disappeared beneath the grey surface. When he did not reappear immediately, Giuliano treaded water and laughed, expecting his brother to swim beneath him and grasp his foot at any moment.

Seconds passed. Giuliano’s laughter turned to silence, then fear – then he began calling for his brother. On the shore, the women – unable to enter the water, because of their heavy skirts – began to cry out in panic.

Giuliano was only a child. He had not yet overcome his fear of diving beneath the water, yet love for his brother drove him to suck in a deep breath and submerge himself. The silence there astonished him; he opened his eyes and peered in the direction where Lorenzo had been.

The river was muddy from the previous day’s rains; Giuliano’s eyes stung as he searched. He could see nothing but a large, irregular dark shape some distance away from him, deep beneath the waters. It was not human – not Lorenzo – but it was all that was visible, and instinct told him to approach it. He surfaced, drew in more air, then compelled himself to dive down again: there, the length of three tall men beneath the surface, lay the craggy limbs of a fallen tree.

Giuliano’s lungs burned; yet his sense that Lorenzo was nearby made him push, with arms and legs, against the quiet water. With a final, painful burst, he reached the sunken branches and pressed a palm against the slick surface of the trunk.

At once, he grew remarkably dizzy, and heard a rushing in his ears; he shut his eyes and opened his mouth, gasping for air. There was none to be had, and so he drank in the foul Arno. He retched it up at once, then reflex forced him to gulp in more.

Giuliano was drowning.

Though a child, he understood clearly that he was dying. The realization prompted him to open his eyes, to capture a last glimpse of earth that he might take with him to Heaven.

At that instant, a cloud moved overhead, permitting a shaft of sunlight to pierce the river, so thoroughly that it caused the silt suspended in the water to glitter, and illumined the area directly before Giuliano’s eyes.

Staring back at him, an arm’s length away, was the drowning Lorenzo. His tunic and mantle had been caught on an errant branch, and he had twisted himself about in a mad effort to be free.

Both brothers should have died then. But Giuliano had prayed, with a child’s guilelessness: God, let me save my brother.

Impossibly, he had pulled the tangled clothing loose from the branch.

Impossibly, the freed Lorenzo had seized Giuliano’s hands, and pulled the two of them up to the surface.

From there, Giuliano’s memory became more blurred. He only remembered snippets: of himself vomiting on the grassy shore while the slave woman pounded his back, of Lorenzo wet and shivering, wrapped in picnic linens; of voices calling out: Brother, speak to me! Of Lorenzo in the carriage on the ride home, furious, fighting tears: Don’t ever risk yourself for me! You almost died! Father would never forgive me …! But the unspoken message was louder: Lorenzo would never forgive himself.

In the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli lifted his knife to deal Giuliano another blow.

Dear God, Giuliano prayed, with the sincerity of a child. Let me rescue my brother.

With strength he did not have, he then pushed backwards against his first attacker, causing the man to step onto the hem of his garment and fall, tangled in his robes.

Time slowed then for Giuliano, just as it had that day in the Arno. Despite his lethargy, he willed himself to do the impossible and create a barrier between the attackers and Lorenzo. If he was unable to cry out a warning to his brother, he could at least slow the murderers down.

Then he heard Lorenzo’s voice. Giuliano! Brother, speak to me! He could not have said whether it came from within the Duomo, or whether he heard an echo from childhood, the voice of an eleven-year-old boy calling from the banks of a river. He wanted to tell his brother to run, but he could not speak. Struggling to draw a breath, he choked on warm liquid.

Baroncelli tried to edge by him; but Giuliano stumbled intentionally into his path. Francesco de’ Pazzi pushed past them both, the sight of blood stirring him into a frenzy; his small black eyes sparkled as his wiry body shook with hatred. Raising his dagger – a long blade, almost as slender and keen as a stiletto – he too, tried to move beyond Baroncelli’s victim, but Giuliano would not let him pass.

Giuliano opened his mouth to an anguished wheeze, meaning to scream instead, You will never get near my brother. I will die first, but you will never lay a hand on Lorenzo.

Francesco simply snarled something unintelligible and moved to strike the young man.

Weaponless, Giuliano raised a defensive hand and the knife pierced his palm and forearm; but compared to the agony in his chest and in his back, these fresh wounds were no worse than the sting of an insect. Taking a step towards Francesco, towards Baroncelli, he forced them backwards, and gave Lorenzo time to flee.

Francesco, a vicious little man, let loose a torrent of all the rage, all the enmity that his family felt towards the Medici. Each phrase he uttered was punctuated by a further blow of his dagger.

‘Sons of whores, all of you! Your father betrayed my father’s trust …’

Giuliano felt a deep, piercing bite in his shoulder, then in his upper arm. He could not keep it raised, so he let it fall, limply, to his blood-soaked side.

‘Your brother has done everything possible to keep us out of the Signoria.’

Harsher wounds were dealt now upon Giuliano’s chest, his neck, followed by a dozen blows to his torso. Francesco was a madman. His hand and blade pummelled Giuliano so swiftly that the two were enveloped in crimson spray. His movements were so wild and careless, he even pierced his own thigh, shrieking loudly as his blood mingled with his enemy’s. Pain fuelled Francesco’s fury as he continued to strike.

Spoken ill of us to His Holiness.

Insulted our family.

Stolen the city.

Such calumny against his brother should have incited Giuliano’s anger, but he had found a place where his emotions were still.

The waters inside the cathedral were murky with blood; he could barely see the wavering images of his attackers against the backdrop of scrambling bodies. Baroncelli and Francesco were shouting. Giuliano saw their mouths agape. The glint of wielded steel was dulled by the muddy Arno, and he could hear nothing. In the river, all was silent.

A shaft of sunlight streamed in from the open door leading north to the Via de’ Servi. Giuliano stepped towards it, intent on looking for Lorenzo, but the current pulled strongly on him, and it was hard to walk through the swirling water.

Just beyond his reach, the raven-haired Anna wept and wrung her hands, mourning the children they might have had; her love tugs at him. But it is Lorenzo who has the final hold on his heart. Lorenzo, whose heart will break when he finds his younger sibling. It is Giuliano’s greatest regret.

‘Brother.’ Giuliano’s lips merely formed the word as he sank to his knees.

Lorenzo sits on the banks of the Arno, clutching a blanket round his shoulders. He is soaked through and shivering, but he is alive.

Relieved, Giuliano lets go of a shallow sigh – all the air that remains in his lungs – then sinks to where the waters are deepest and black.

Painting Mona Lisa

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