The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,121

gave his false title to the manservant nearest us. The powerful scent of laurel was in my nose, the powerful hand of Lorenzo de’ Medici was at Brother Guido’s lips, accepting the kiss of greeting.

I saw the flash of gold too late.

Il Magnifico’s fingers were ringless, but his thumb was not.

At the same instant that Brother Guido’s lips touched the ring hand, and his blue eyes flew wide in realization, a black shadow peeled from the wall behind Lorenzo, inclined its cowled head to its master, and extended a diseased hand from the robes of the unclean to point to me.

My numbed brain trotted out a trinity of panicked thoughts, like the litany we had just heard.

Credo Uno: Lorenzo il Magnifico was one of the Seven. Not his cousin the groom.

Credo Due: he was in no danger—he was the source of it.

And most terrifying of all,

Credo Tre: Cyriax Melanchthon was his creature.

I turned to hush the servant before he announced us, but it was too late—he intoned in his loud Tuscan: “Lord Niccolò della Torre of the city of Pisa.”

A voice from the doorway, calling back, just as loud, as in answer to catechism:

“No man has a right to that name but me.” The accent was Pisan. We all turned as one to the door.

Like the happy couple at their entrance, the figure in the door was black gainst the sun. Yet I would know his foppish stance anywhere, for all that I had met him only once. And there was no mistaking his retinue, wearing the colors and holding the streaming yellow-orange pennants of the Cock-erel party.

It was Niccolò della Torre.

Many, many times between that day and this I have asked myself why it never occurred to Brother Guido or me that the real Niccolò della Torre might have been there at the Medici wedding. Was it that he had, for us, disappeared from the earth’s disk once his cousin had taken his name? Was it that we were so absorbed in the riddle of the Primavera that we had forgotten that he existed, had been invited? Or was it that we assumed a fellow who would not attend his father’s feast when he lived in the same city would not cross Tuscany for a wedding, however exalted?

In the end it mattered not why we had not considered this pass—I looked into Brother Guido’s anguished eyes and knew we were done for. The eyes of all were upon us—my companion and I were silent, knowing this to be the end.

The crowd parted as if before Moses to let Niccolò through. Although he was gloriously dressed in cloth of gold, his weak face and mean eyes were unimproved, and his voice dripped evil as he spoke the dreaded syllables. “This is my cousin, a Franciscan novice, Guido della Torre.”

He ignored the gasps and raised his voice over them. I had to drop my eyes as the furious gaze of Don Ferrente raked us from the crowds. “And this is his doxy. You will know her as the goddess Flora”—his voice dripped irony—“but she is no deity, merely a common whore.”

Before I could prevent him, he yanked at the turban that covered my hair; I spun around like a top as the cloth unraveled and my wheaten curls fell around my shoulders to my waist. The sunlight streaming in at the door snatched greedily at the gilded filaments, turning my tresses to spun gold. The staring faces about me seemed to wheel and spin around me in dizzying circles, and as I tried to steady myself before my accuser, I was powerless. My painted twin gazed from her spring scene, smiling her mischievous smile, offering no help, for all the world enjoying my disgrace. I knew not what would happen now, but I could never have expected what did.

The dogaressa rose from her seat and spoke in clear tones. “That is no whore, Prince. She is my daughter, and your betrothed.” Then she took off her mask.

Now, I cannot tell you much of what happened next, for I was beyond all sense and reason. I will have to refer you to what my husband told me afterward, for yes, he was in the church that day. He said that when the dogaressa took off her mask, there were three of me in that room, myself, Flora, and she. Mother and daughter, he said, were so alike it was as if a Venetian mirror stood between us. I saw the resemblance for