The Botticelli Secret - By Marina Fiorato Page 0,197

why it does.”

I watched, helpless, as he struggled with the black mountainous waves, fearing that he would be dashed on the rocks; but he was a strong oarsman and pulled free of the wicked shoreline, the light getting smaller and smaller. At every stroke of the oars I feared that the torch would go out, feared that it wouldn’t. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted him to succeed in his task or fail and return.

The torch flickered, was dying. Then the boat leaped into flame—he had used something for kindling, to keep the flame alive. Now I knew he could not survive, and watched, appalled, as the lighted boat illuminated a larger scape, the dark, tall silhouette of a Genoese schooner, pulling the boat in with grapple hooks, smaller dots of flame breaking off from the burning bark as the sailors lit torches. Dark figures fired the sails; then the whole ship became a conflagration, for they must have soaked the canvases with oil. Shapes jumped and fell against the flame as all hands leaped into the water—Signor Cristoforo and his valiant crew. Then the fire ship, keeping a steady course, found the flagship of the Muda and one, then ten, then twenty, then a thousand ships caught and the ocean itself was aflame. Screams and confusion as the fleet burned and enough light for my desperate eyes to search for the little burning bark—as impossible as trying to see one twig in a burning hearth. But then, for the second time that night, I did see a human form burning, standing alone in the ocean on the burning curracle—a little island of fire. The figure stretched out his arms like Christ and shouted some words, before he dived into the waves.

I did as Brother Guido had bid me and began to pray.

50

The first day of spring dawned cold and drizzling.

Although the storm had blown itself out, the misty rain soaked my hair and clothes, in the place where Lorenzo’s dream had died and my own had ended. He had wanted an empire, I had wanted a lover. A great dream and a little one. Both dead.

More than dreams had finished their stories here. As I wandered on the beach in the silver dawn, charred bodies of sailors washed ashore, some Genoese, most Neapolitan. I set myself a grisly task—I turned every body with my foot, examined every bloated face for Brother Guido’s features. My heart told me he had gone, but I had to be sure. I would not give up. My feet were numbed by the freezing tide washing over my shoes, but I barely noticed.

“Luciana!” A voice hailed me from the shore. I spun at once, but it was Signor Cristoforo.

“Come away,” he said. “He is not there.”

“I know.”

He came to me, laid a hand gently on my shoulder. “In the end he had to set fire to the boat to keep the flame alive. I saw him jump—he had no choice—it was that or burn. We all did the same. But I think he could not swim.”

“He couldn’t,” I choked.

“Better swimmers than he are dead this day. The fire, the storm, were too much for them, and him too.”

I turned my eyes on him. “Bartolomeo?”

“He lives. But many poor souls did not—here and upon the mountain too. But Genoa won the day.”

It seemed an odd phrase—for all appeared lost to me. I looked out to sea, fixing my eyes on the spot where I had last seen Brother Guido. “Did he say something?”

“Yes. He said, The chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire. He shouted it. Then jumped.”

I nodded. Unable to speak. I suppose I should have been glad that he quoted the Scriptures at the end, before going to meet his God.

But I had rather he had sent a message to me.

Signor Cristoforo held both my shoulders. “He saved many more than were lost. Countless souls. He saved my city. I think . . . he must have been a very good man.”

“He was,” I whispered. My legs gave way and I sank to the shingle, swept away on a tide of grief.

He squatted beside me and looked out to sea. Charred hulls poked from the water like bergs, soon to sink forever, their masts and blackened pennants the last to go. So many, so very many burned-out ships, clustered on the horizon like a winter forest. “I came to say good-bye,” he said.

I turned stricken eyes upon him. “You too?” He was the one