The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,126

was some brat got by a sailor in a quick shoreside jump, only for my father to leave the next day for some distant port. If I had ever pictured him, his image could not have been further from the reality. I could not believe that my father ruled all this.

I sullenly stared at a fantastical city emerging fleetingly from the mists, at once grandiose and crumbling into dust. To illustrate this dual identity, we passed a smaller tributary, a little canal leading off between two palaces, where on the bridge over every inch of the balustrade dangled dozens of pairs of breasts belonging to the working girls that were showing their wares to passing trade. The sign above the bridge was clearly visible before the mist swallowed it and them—PONTE DELLE TETTE—Bridge of the Tits. As in Florence I looked upon those girls remembering that I had once been like them, but this time I felt not pity but envy. To have such a life again, to think only of your next jump and your next crust, such a life seemed simple and beautiful to me now. I was so lost in the notion that it took me some time to realize that my mother was speaking again.

“. . . must lie low and winter here,” she finished.

Madonna.

I looked at the glass city with dismay—winter, here? It was barely August; I could not spend a year’s half here in this place!

She missed nothing. Noting my expression, she went on. “My dear, great things are at stake, things that I—we—must be a part of. Your wedding will take place next summer when you turn seventeen, as ratified in our treaty with the Pisans. And by God, you will be a very different creature before you meet Niccolò again. I know how you spent your teenage years, and it is . . . regrettable. We have some history to rewrite, ‘tis true. But it can be achieved. When spring comes, you will be a princess of the Serenissima, not some little Florentine trollop.”

The words dropped from the mouth of her mask like blocks of ice.

For the last hour on this floating blade I had been struggling to find something to like about my mother—to forgive her desertion, to transform her coldness into warmth, to mitigate her complete lack of interest in the fate of my one love and the only person who had ever looked after me. When she poured her scorn on my profession—the one she had forced me to by her desertion—I gave up trying abruptly. I remembered what Don Ferrente had said at his Neapolitan court—that she was an upstart courtesan—and found all this talk of transformation a little rich for my palate. She was no more noble than I; I was one of a succession of worthless whores.

I spat neatly on her golden-masked cheek. “Fuck you, you evil bitch. Don’t think I don’t know how you rewrote your history—you’re no better than an upstart courtesan.” I repeated the phrase with pleasure. “I’ll bet you were dangling your tits over that bridge a few years ago, back when they were nice and firm and juicy, like mine.” I leaned in and whispered my last shot. “You fucked your way to my father’s side and everyone knows it.”

I was tingling, alive again with the scent of blood, and waited, not caring, for her response.

“Ah, yes. Undoubtedly the language of a Torcicoda tart. No matter. We have a number of months to correct your tongue, among other things.”

I could tell that the impossible woman was now smiling behind her mask, and that she liked me more, not less, for my outburst. She liked a fight too, and I was ready for one. “I don’t give a shit what you say; I’m not marrying that Pisano toad. And I am going back to Florence as soon as your back is turned.”

“How?” she asked simply. “Venice is a hundred islands surrounded by water, and all waterways are controlled by your father. His eyes look from every window. And if you did leave here, what welcome could you expect from Lorenzo’s city? We spoke of summary justice just now. Let me tell you a tale of Lorenzo’s revenge in action. You have heard, I suppose, of the Pazzi conspiracy?”

Madonna. Not the fucking Pazzis again. They were ever at the root of all of this. I was sulky and silent.

“All the Pazzis paid for their crimes, but none more so than Signor Jacopo de’