lion mask, almost forgetting there was a person within, until I saw that, from behind her disguise, she regarded me, too, with eyes as green as my own. I turned away, flushed, but as I did so I realized—she was the dogaressa.
The doge’s courtesan—a woman so fair she did not remove her mask.
So the man in the cock hat she escorted must be the doge of Venice.
And if it were so, she was the mother of the girl intended for Niccolò della Torre—Brother Guido’s cousin and the man he now pretended to be.
Madonna.
My thoughts did not tend this way for long, for it was then I noticed:
Cosa Due: a figure, grander and greater than all before me, seated in an elaborate carved chair, at the left of the chancel steps. This man I knew, as all Florentines knew him. Though we had never met, I had seen his image a dozen times—the noble nose, the darkly curling hair, the elongated face. But never before had I seen him in the flesh. This, I knew, was the father of our city, banker to barons, politician without peer. The man they called “the Magnificent”—Lorenzo de’ Medici.
Never had I seen a man so vital, nor one who wore the mantle of his power with such confidence. He was simply dressed in purple velvet, the color of dark grapes, a hue that I knew was written in law to be worn only by Medici men or Tornabuoni women. He wore a matching berretta hat with a twisted fall of velvet folds to the left of his face. His fingers were ringless—his one embellishment a heavy chain of office around his neck. Now I had, in the last crazy months, been in the presence of princes and popes, not something I had ever expected in my humble lot. The man before me wore perhaps one tenth of the value of the clothes that adorned Don Ferrente. And yet, he was a man to be reckoned with, a crouching tiger. At once I saw the ridiculous hopelessness of our plan. He did not look like a man who would ever be vanquished or in danger. He was not a man whom a monk and a whore could approach and prattle of riddles and plots. He looked like the king of the world. And yet, as I turned to whisper to Brother Guido that we should go quietly away and let this great man shift for himself, I suddenly caught sight of:
Cosa Tre: the greatest and most heart-stopping of these three unusual sights. For there, garlanded with flowers and grass-green ribbons, and propped on a great oaken easel, awaiting the happy couple, was the Primavera.
Finished.
Madonna.
It was glorious.
The figures had such color and vitality that they seemed more alive than any in the company here. Larger than life, they were gods and goddesses come to Earth. There was Fiammetta as Naples, Venus bidding us welcome, Botticelli dressed as Mercury, and—strangest of all—Flora.
Me.
I had been so used to seeing the cartone for this past month, so used to the faceless figure, that I had not remembered that Botticelli had captured me so accurately, so completely. My face was beautiful but worldly—my lips curling and my green eyes knowing, exactly the face I make when I conceal something, or when I tease my clients, or when they have entrusted me with a secret never to be told. A good working girl knows when to keep her trap shut, and I know better than most.
The Flora of the Primavera had a secret.
I may not know what the roses meant, but I knew in that instant that I was wrong about Lorenzo de’ Medici. Right about this. He was in danger. There was something hidden here. I recalled at once our purpose here; what Nicodemus of Padua had said of the one flower, one single rose among the others that we must note. That we’d have to see it here, in the painting, for real, to know if it fell or grew, whether it was to be counted in the number of Flora’s secret bouquet or discounted as one of the innocent blooms that dotted the sward. The secret was hidden sub rosa. It was the key to all, a touch-stone, fail-safe—a way to know that only those at the wedding, those seven conspirators who would see the thing up close, would know the meaning.
Annoyingly, from my seated position I could see the bunched roses in Flora’s skirt but not the single