The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,189

with an unnatural attitude or posture. He is too accomplished for that. It must be by design, and the inference is, they are all hiding something, namely, their place in the alliance.”

“It was by design!” I burst in. “For it was Botticelli himself who arranged my hands for me when I sat for him. I remember now how he hid my thumb under a fold of the fabric which held the roses. It was no accident. But why thumbs, of all things?”

Brother Guido shrugged. “In these lands it is common to bite your thumb at someone that you challenge to a fight. I think the origin of the gesture derives from the chivalric act of removing a gauntlet with the teeth, starting with the left thumb, so that the right hand can take the left glove and use it to strike the offender’s face.”

The brothers could not follow above a half of this cant about thumbs and were growing understandably impatient in light of the threat to their city. “So now what?” urged Signor Cristoforo.

“We must alert the Doge of Genoa,” decided Brother Guido. “We gain audience somehow, and if he doesn’t wear a ring on his left thumb, I think we may be sure he knows nothing of this conspiracy.”

Signor Cristoforo leaped to his feet. “Bartolomeo, alert the harbormaster and the militia. Get them to ready the cannon ships in the port. Tell them there is an attack coming. Say we have intelligence from Venice. Take this”—he ripped up the new printed map from the table—“show him the cross of Genoa. Hurry.”

His brother took the map and turned at the door. “Where are you going?”

“I must away with my friends to the doge. They know me at the palace, they’ve been kicking me out on my arse for a month for asking for money. They would never admit a Pisano. I can speak plain Genoese to the guards.”

“What about me?” I protested.

“Stay here,” they thundered in unison. Looked at each other.

“I,” began Brother Guido, “that is to say, we, all want you out of danger.”

“You must be joking.” I grabbed my cloak. “I’ve come this far. I’ve hardly been ‘out of danger’ these past months. I can help! Have I not helped, so far?” I wheedled at Brother Guido, turned him around bodily by his shoulders and forced him to meet my eyes.

He looked me full in the face. “More than that,” he admitted reluctantly. “We would not be here without you.”

Signor Cristoforo shrugged. “Come, then, but stay in the rearguard.” He turned back to his brother.

“Get the militia to come to the faro. We must post a lookout at la lanterna.”

A flash lit my brain as if lightning had struck. “What did you just say?”

Something in my voice stopped them in their tracks.

Signor Cristoforo turned slowly. “What, la lanterna?”

“Before that.”

“Militia? Faro?”

“Faro.”

“It means lighthouse.”

“What’s a lighthouse?”

“I was no tutor if I did not tell you that,” he replied testily. “The stone tower, yonder, has a great lantern atop the upper terrace. At night, and in sea fog, it lights the ships safely into harbor.” He pointed to the tall finger of stone, clearly visible from this and every shack in Genoa.

“And it’s known as a faro?” My voice shook a little.

“Yes,” he said with great impatience. All three men were staring at me now, as if I were a lunatic to stay them from their tasks with such mindless twaddle.

“How d’you spell that?” I asked grimly.

Signor Cristoforo regarded me as if I were an idiot child. “F-A-R -O.”

“Faro!” I shouted. I ripped the painting from Signor Cristoforo’s hand. “We said, didn’t we, that some cities held clues for other cities?” I demanded of Brother Guido. “Florence, for instance, holds the thirty-two roses to point to the compass rose in Venice?”

The brothers looked nonplussed but dear Brother Guido nodded.

“Yes, I see all that.”

“Well, d’you remember, we could never read the Chloris flowers?”

Now I had lost even him. “What are you talking about?”

“Chloris,” I insisted. “Don’t you remember? Brother Nicodemus said ‘flowers drop from her mouth like truths.’ And he was right. They are truths. There are four botanical types issuing from her mouth. Remember? Fiordaliso, anemone, rose, and occhiocento.”

“Well, those are colloquial vernacular names, not the Latin genus terms, but yes.”

I waved my hand. “Forget about that. Think about their first letters.”

“F-A-R-O,” he mouthed, eyes enormous as he turned them on me. “Lighthouse. That’s where they’re going to land.”

“And remember,” I urged, “that occhiocento is the flower of death. The