Guido. “She seems so . . . so important to the whole thing,” said I. “She is holding Naples’s hand, and Pisa’s too.”
“Not only that but Botticelli’s—I mean Mercury’s—sword, the curved scimitar just like the one I bear here”—he patted his scabbard—“is pointed right at Simonetta, see? The point of it almost touches her leg—indeed, I am sure it touches the fabric of her dress at the very least. Surely that must indicate Genoa’s place in this conspiracy, ring or no ring.”
I peered closer. “You’re right.”
“And there’s something else too,” he went on. “Simonetta is the only known face in the whole painting.”
“How d’you mean?”
“Well, she was a very famous beauty. The other ladies here are only really renowned in their own states. Your mother’s beauty is legendary, but no one knows her features, as she goes about masked. You were a child, raised on the Florentine streets, the fairest of all”—I suppressed a secret smile—“but fully unknown. And Semiramide Appiani, a virgin bride, was protected by her family from the public gaze, and only found fame with her marriage. Only Fiammetta of Naples comes anywhere close to Simonetta’s fame, and she was more of an archetype.”
“A what?”
“A trope, a model—based on Maria d’Aquino, certainly, but a fictive construct of Boccaccio’s. Whereas Simonetta . . .” He looked on her in a way that almost made me jealous. “I’m sure that any common man, certainly in Tuscany or Lombardy, or here in Liguria, would know her if they saw this portrait. And if they did not, she wears this pearl on her forehead,” he pointed, “to identify her beyond doubt.”
I fingered the pearl at my belly, which must rival Simonetta’s for size. “And what of this other jewel?” I pointed to the brooch at Simonetta’s bosom. “More pearls, four more, set with rubies, in a cross or star.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know the significance of that, but it only serves to reinforce her importance, and therefore the point. Why is she marked out so? Why is she rendered in such detail? It seems that Genoa, far from being an afterthought, is the one city that has to be in the painting.”
“So Genoa must be involved . . .”
“So it seems, and that is a great wonder to me, for Pisa and, even more so, Venice, are traditionally sworn enemies of Genoa.”
“. . . and if it is, what’s the next move for the Seven?”
“France,” said Brother Guido briefly.
France. I had heard of the place, of course, slept with a few of its residents, but thought it many thousands of leagues away, possibly across at least one ocean. I said as much.
“No. It’s cheek by jowl with us now. Over yon mountains is the kingdom of Monaco, the gateway to Provence, and all France. The Hapsburg lands we know to be safe through the alliance with Sigismund of Bolzano, cousin to the emperor. There-fore, the only other target which adjoins these lands is France.”
I rummaged in my bodice for the torn and printed page and smoothed the map over the cartone. “Would France be”—I jabbed at the star mark I had noted on the northwest coast of the map—“here?”
He peered at the little mark, obscured by the Bible text. “I know little of cartography, but I do know that France lies to the northeast of us. So my guess would be, yes.”
I gave a long slow whistle. “So the Seven will gather here, and then attack France through the back gate!”
“By land and sea, yes.”
“On the first day of spring. The twenty-first day of March.” I calculated. “Tomorrow!”
“Yes. Tomorrow, probably at dawn for the greatest advantage of surprise, the attack will begin. And the hapless French will feel the full might of the Seven’s army, innocent French men, women, and children . . . speak your thought.” It was said without pause.
He had seen me squirming with doubt. “Well, that is, why do we care? I mean, they’re, well . . .”
“French.”
“Yes.”
His lips curled in a half-smile. “All those who live are equal in . . .” He stopped.
“God’s eyes?”
He looked down at his cup. “It’s not right. These men of the Seven have a kingdom apiece, and they’re willing to embark on a campaign of butchery to revive a long-dead dream of empire. Don’t you want to prevent more bloodshed? You saw those war machines in the crypts of the Sforza castle. Do you want to see them bearing down on families? Children? Besides, after all they’ve done,