is . . . sort of yellow,” I noticed.
“Yes, Doña,” agreed the king. “The moon is in a sickly humor, for we are now in the ides of July.”
“Ides?” I hissed to Brother Guido.
“The middle of the month. It will soon be full summer.”
“Good.” My favorite season. I used to love lolling by the Arno with the other harlots or drinking a cup of wine under a loggia. Even in this gloomy place I could almost feel the fierce heat of the Florentine sun and smell a whiff of the Arno at its lowest ebb. Rank in the noses of others, the scent of the river and all its evils—shit, waste, and even corpses—was the smell of summer to me, as beautiful to my senses as the scent of evening jasmine. Homesickness struck me in the gut, with an even dose of terror at what we must return to.
Don Ferrente echoed my divided feelings. “Summer, yes. But then the winter will follow, as it always does, a challenging one for all of us this year.”
Once again his words seemed to ring with some chime of significance. I could feel Brother Guido hesitate beside me, then steel himself to take a chance.
“But then, sure as the sun will rise, spring comes again. La primavera.”
I heard the word with a shock—so long spoken between us to refer to Botticelli’s painting, I had forgot its other usage. We both looked to Don Ferrente to seek his reaction.
He looked my friend in the eyes, straight and true. “Exactly,” he said, with the same weight to his words. “A new beginning.”
Well, this was enigmatic, to be sure, but told us nothing. As I craned my head to see the moon, even brighter now the torches were doused, I saw the saffron disk begin to disappear before my eyes, as if someone had taken a bite out of it! The bite became bigger and bigger as we watched, aghast. What could this mean? Was the world ending? Had a huge dark celestial beast come to devour the moon like a ravening wolf? Madonna.
Brother Guido felt my consternation, for I gripped his arm fit to stop the blood.
“Be comforted,” he said. “It is an eclipse of the moon—the earth is coming between the sun’s rays and the moon, and as we live on a flat disk, the impression is given that the moon is vanishing. But it is still there and will shine again within the hour.”
I gulped. “But the sun does not shine at night!”
“The sun shines perpetually, my dear. Whether we see it or not,” said the king in significant tones, once again pregnant with meaning.
“Although,” put in my friend tentatively, “such an event can happen to the sun too.”
I felt the king go still.
“For sometimes, very rarely indeed, the sun will move behind the moon in the same way. For all heavenly bodies revolve around the earth, and sometimes the moon blocks our view of the sun too.”
“You are mistaken. I fancy it is only the moon which is covered so,” asserted Don Ferrente stiffly.
“No, indeed,” went on Brother Guido, not sensing the danger, “for such phenomena have been occurring since biblical times. ‘ “And on that day,” said the Lord God, “I will make the Sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight.” ’ ’Tis written in the Old Testament, the Book of Amos,” he supplied.
“Clouds,” said Don Ferrente. “The sun can never be vanquished, else we would all perish.” A memory nagged me—where had I heard such sentiments before? “ ‘Tis the most powerful entity in the heavens,” he went on.
“More powerful than God?” Brother Guido’s dark brows shot heavenward.
Don Ferrente quickly retreated from his position—he was clearly not quite ready to set himself up in opposition to the Almighty. “I meant only that the sun governs all in nature—the hours of day, the seasons . . .” He looked hard at his adversary, but Brother Guido missed the glance, so lively was he with argument.
“But the earth is not ruled by it,” said he carefully. “Nor the moon—tonight is proof enough.”
Don Ferrente had his answer ready. “Ah! But there are some who say that the sun is the center of all, and that all the heavenly bodies revolve around it. Some of those believers are great men whom we know well.”
Brother Guido, once again, missed the hint. “Heretics, sire!” I closed my eyes briefly, for Brother Guido had become bullish in his argument, and now had, if