The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,108

the three Marys, I would warrant that the palle will appear there too.”

Brother Guido stood. “It is time,” he said, and he helped the old monk to his feet, where he came up to around the younger man’s navel. The two brothers moved to the long table and Brother Guido removed the cartone from his pouch. Brother Nicodemus weighted the corners with stones that gleamed red in the firelight—carnelians, I guessed, for use in his healing work. Uninvited, I moved behind them to watch. I had not seen the Primavera for some time, for it had been bound to the chest of my silent companion since Rome, and each time I saw it after long absence I was struck by the beauty of the thing—never more so than now, gilded by firelight and cornered with carnelians. Two heads, one white, one black, bent over the picture and I must wait my turn. I did not have to wait long.

“There,” announced the herbalist, standing back. “The apples of the Hesperides; they represent the palle, the emblem of the Medici.”

I stepped forth, my eyes following his gnarled finger to the trees above the figures, where above a hundred round golden fruits dangled from the leaves.

“Look more like oranges to me,” I muttered.

“The apples of the Hesperides are oranges in classical literature, Luciana.” Brother Guido did not even look at me as he put me straight. “And these oranges appear on every Medici coat of arms nine times.”

“Look here too,” exclaimed the old monk abruptly. He pointed to the natural arch of leaves above Venus’s head.

“Laurels,” said Brother Guido. “Yes, we noted them in Rome. We thought then that they identify the victim of the plot—Lorenzo the Magnificent.”

“Or the mastermind himself, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici,” put in Brother Nicodemus.

I felt a little chill despite the fire—what we were looking at here was the map of a murder. A murder that we must prevent.

Brother Nicodemus echoed my thoughts. “Then your way forward is obvious.” He turned to Brother Guido. “Leaving aside your faith for a moment, your moral imperative is clear. Whether or not you are a monk, you are a good man. By the grace of God you have been given the chance to attend this wedding under an assumed identity. You must use this chance to gain audience with Lorenzo the Magnificent, and lay all this before him, and save his life. For how else will you petition him, now that your uncle, God rest his soul, is dead? He would not see a humble Franciscan novice, and”—he gestured to me—“a young lady with no credentials, but a prince of Pisa and his escort, well . . .” He had no need to finish. “And his protection, if you saved him from such a conspiracy, is assured.”

“But Brother Nicodemus, our knowledge of the plot is, at present, merely conjecture,” protested Brother Guido. “We know the identity of just three of the seven—no more. We need your help—if we can discover the ‘secret that the flowers hold,’ we may be able to know more details, and detail will give our information credibility.”

“I understand you well. Let us take another look, and this time we shall consider only the lilies of the field.”

Now as I craned to see, I was dismayed by the sheer number of flowers in the painting.

Madonna.

There were more blooms than cow shits in a midden.

As you’d expect for a painting named after the spring, there were numerous plants dotting the sward. Above the figure’s heads there were orange blossoms. There were blooms all over Flora’s dress, as I well remembered from that unforgettable day modeling for Botticelli. Well, too, I remembered the heavy chaplet of flowers I was charged to wear on my brow that day. There were the roses filling my skirt too, and flowers falling from the mouth of the nymph standing to my right, whom Brother Guido had identified as Chloris. No figure went ungarlanded—even warlike Mercury had tiny starlike blossoms wreathed around his boots.

“Holy fuck!” I breathed, earning myself my first direct look from Nicodemus of Padua. I was back in the schoolroom for a moment, and held my tongue thereafter, for I did not wish to receive such a glance again. Brother Guido, in his new pessimism, clearly felt the same despair as I did, but used language of less color.

“ ‘Tis impossible,” he said. “Forgive me, Brother. We are on a fool’s errand. There are too many. Even if we had days or