The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,182

the date?” he demanded urgently.

This sudden change of tack threw me, but I tried to answer as best I could. “I left Venice at the beginning of March, but then we were in Bolzano, then traveled here, so . . . middle of March, I’d say.”

“The ides of March, precisely.”

“But I don’t know exactly.”

“I think I do. We don’t have much time left.”

He took up the reins and jump-mounted the stallion, dragging me up with even less ceremony than before. He kicked the poor horse so hard it shot out of the spinney—the stars wheeled over our heads like a planisphere and the wind whistled past my ears. I had to bawl my question lest Zephyrus carry it away.

“Much time left before what?”

“The twenty-first day of March. New Year for the Florentines and a new empire for the Medici.” He turned his head so that I might hear. “Before the first day of spring.”

9

Genoa

Genoa, March 1483

44

Our journey to Genoa was the worst yet.

My joy at being re united with Brother Guido could not be cherished, our reunion not nurtured, for now we raced against spring herself. Brother Guido calculated less than a week till the twenty-first day of March—a day considered to be the first day of spring by Christian and pagan calendars alike—as we were now at the ides, or the fifteenth day. He was sure that the attack would take place on that day, for not only was the painting named for the season, but Poliziano’s ode was firmly rooted in the subject of the coming spring, and renewal, and new world order, and other meaningful concepts. I knew nothing of poetry, but I believed my own eyes—Flora, my own figure, was so inviting, so central, to the painting, and it was she who looked the viewer in the eye, she who stepped forth in front of her fellows, she who was pregnant with promise. I could appreciate the irony—nigh on a year ago my last client and bedfellow Bembo had promised me I would be the most important figure in Botticelli’s painting. Then I had thought it flattery—now I knew the truth.

Ludovico’s army was at our heels every step of the way. Brother Guido told me they would mobilize as soon as it was discovered that the horse and myself were gone. Once we actually saw the vast company of infantry, insubstantial as ants, on a far mountain pass, but only a day’s ride away. And as the army of the Seven gained, so did spring; soon mountains of shimmering ice turned to green hills with white villages spiraling round the top, then ever down to balmy coastline, with a brilliant lapis sea and coral caves. That warm breath of the coming spring, that first day of the year when you cast off your cloak, usually so welcome, was to us a terrifying signal of the turning season. The thaw was coming.

And there were still so many mysteries to answer, before we gained the city gates. What was Genoa’s role in the whole plot? How could the city be a member of the Seven if we had seen seven gold membership rings already? “Unless ‘the Seven’ refers to all the other conspirators that have joined Lorenzo de’ Medici, the founder.”

“Then surely they would have named themselves ‘the Eight,’ “ argued my companion. “No, I would wager that the ruler of this place does not bear a ring, but why I cannot tell you. Perhaps Genoa is innocent of all this.” This I could almost believe, except for the presence of Simonetta, the pearl of Genoa, as plain as day, that famous face.

Il Moro’s horse cast a shoe at the hilltop town of Torriglia, so, forced to break our journey, Brother Guido and I stopped for our first repast since we had been on the road. We shared a jug of wine and a loaf at a wayside tavern, seated at a table set outside the door of the inn, so we could see all entrances to the town square and the smith shoeing our mount across the square. Way down below, now revealed by the shifting sea fog, was a granite-gray walled city set on the lip of the sea, the rooftops and turrets silver faceted like an iceberg.

Genoa.

We unrolled the cartone once more, set our goblets at each edge, and stared into the beauteous features of the last figure in the scene, Simonetta Cattaneo, that famed, long-dead beauty, a portrait true as life, according to Brother