to her guests. And her headdress and veil is one of a Roman bride.” Brother Guido slid his eyes to me sidelong. “Furthermore, she will be wed on a Friday.”
I let forth a swine-grunt of scorn. “Come on. How on earth d’you figure that? No one’s married on Friday. It’s unlucky.”
“Ah, possibly you’re thinking of the verse:
Nè di Vener, nè di Marte
Non si sposa, non si parte
Nè si dà principio all’arte
That is to say: do not marry, start traveling or begin a job either on a Friday or a Tuesday.’”
I most certainly was not, but I had had long practice in gulling Brother Guido into thinking I was cleverer than I was, so I was too smart to chase that coney. I might have added, though, that I met him on a Friday and that’s the day this whole shine began. “I merely meant, what leads you up that alley?”
“Look closely. The bride’s cloak is covered in tiny crosses.”
I peered obediently and could not gainsay him.
“Why, you might ask, when the rest of the image—a Roman bride, a heathen medallion—is so determinedly pagan? The answer is, Good Friday is the day of the Crucifixion. And if it were not, the figure’s name leads us to the light, for we have identified her as Venus, and Friday—Venerdi—is Venus’s day.”
“So who is she? Are we to trail round the eternal city looking for another dead dame?”
He shook his head. “On the contrary. This maid is very much alive. Look at the colors she wears. Livid, vibrant, vital. No ghostly white fabrics and pale skin for her. She lives, I am sure of it. The color of her cloak is the greatest clue. Look hard—where is it matched in this very painting?”
I peered. “Mercury’s cloak!”
“Exactly. There is a visual, color link to the only other figure in the painting that we know with any certainty to be alive.”
“The artist himself, Botticelli!”
“Yes.”
“So, where should we begin?” My blood was up once more and I began to pace the ramparts, keen, like a greyhound, to begin the hunt.
“Begin?”
“To identify this maiden?”
“No need. If I were truly the heir of Pisa and not a humble monk, I would wager the whole of my city that this lady is the image of the bride we go to see wed. Her name is even the same as the road that we have just traversed, the very road that leads to Rome, the Appian Way. This lady is Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici’s betrothed, and Don Ferrente’s niece, Semiramide Appiani.”
The name echoed in my head, and footsteps sounded with them. A figure emerged from the castle, tiny across the battlements but getting larger with every step—the form of the King of Naples, Don Ferrente, come to seek us. “Hide the cartone,” I hissed to the brother, “and look as if you mean love.”
I clasped him about his neck and pressed our cheeks together, for I knew he would protest this time if I kissed him as I would have dearly wished. But he played his part in the pantomime.
“Love, indeed,” he murmured, and my heart leaped in hope, but like an attorney-at-law he had merely saved his best argument to the last. “Venus is the goddess of love. ‘Love’ in Latin is amor, A-M-O-R. Turn the word around and what do you get?” He knew letters were not my strong suit so he did not wait for a reply. “R-O-M-A.”
Then Don Ferrente was upon us, but I still had time to smile and send a nod of appreciation to Sandro Botticelli wherever he was. The clever bugger had put the answer there for all to see. Amor; Roma. I was chuckling as the king greeted us.
“My lord Niccolò. My lady ‘Fiammetta.’ “ ‘Twas said with great gallantry, but I was pretty sure that he named me so because he had forgotten what I was actually called.
“It grieves me to disturb your amorous sojourn, as there are so few nights of such freedoms left to you.” I was not sure what the king meant by this last ominous hint, and was pretty sure Brother Guido didn’t either, but my friend, in character, nodded sagely.
“But there is a spectacle tonight that I knew that you, my lord, as a man of learning like myself, would not wish to miss.”
“Yes, Majesty?” said Brother Guido, all questioning politeness.
24
A ring of bells later and we stood before an enormous building, silver and squat in the moonlight. Brother Guido and I had stopped in our