His motive, of course, was to catch a glimpse of Giulietta and, if possible, offer her his assistance. With what, exactly, he was not sure, but he knew that he could not be calm until she knew she still had friends left in this world. But no matter how long he waited-climbing around on ladders pretending to find fault with his own work-the young woman never came downstairs. Nor did anyone mention her name. It was almost as if she had ceased to exist.
One evening, when Maestro Ambrogio was stretched at the very top of a tall ladder, inspecting the same coat of arms for the third time and wondering if perhaps he ought to rethink his strategy, he accidentally came to overhear a conversation between Salimbeni and his son, Nino, taking place in the neighboring room. Clearly under the impression that they were alone, the two men had withdrawn into this remote part of the house to discuss an issue that required some discretion; little did they know that, through the gap between a side door and frame, standing very still on his ladder, Maestro Ambrogio could hear every word.
“I want you,” said Salimbeni to his son, “to take Monna Giulietta to Rocca di Tentennano and see to it that she is properly… installed.”
“So soon?” exclaimed the young man. “Do you not think people will talk?”
“People are already talking,” observed Salimbeni, apparently used to having such frank exchanges with his son, “and I do not want everything to come to a boil. Tebaldo… Romeo… all that. It would be good for you to leave town for a while. Until people forget. Too much has happened lately. The mob is stirring. It worries me.”
Nino made a sound that could only be an attempt at laughter. “Perhaps you should go instead of me. A change of air-”
“Quiet!” There was a limit to Salimbeni’s camaraderie. “You will go, and you will bring her with you. Out with her, disobedient baggage! It sickens me to have her in my house. And once you are there, I want you to stay-”
“Stay there?” Nino could think of nothing more odious than a sojourn in the country. “For how long?”
“Until she is pregnant.”
There was an understandable silence, during which Maestro Ambrogio had to cling to the ladder with both hands so as to not lose his balance as he coped with the shocking demand.
“Oh no-” Nino backed away from his father, finding the whole thing absurd. “Not me. Someone else. Anyone.”
His face flushed with rage, Salimbeni walked right up to his son and took him by the collar. “I do not have to tell you what is going on. Our honor is at stake. I would happily do away with her, but she is a Tolomei. So, I will do the second best, and plant her in the country where no one is looking, busy with her children and out of my way.” He finally let go of his son. “People will say I have been merciful.”
“Children?” Nino liked the plan less and less. “For how many years do you want me to sleep with my mother?”
“She is sixteen!” retorted Salimbeni, “and you will do as I say. Before this winter is over, I want everyone in Siena to know that she is pregnant with my child. Preferably a boy.”
“I shall endeavor to give satisfaction,” said Nino, sarcastically.
Seeing that his son was being flippant, Salimbeni held up a warning finger. “But God help you if you let her out of your sight. No one else may touch her but you. I do not want to show off a bastard.”
Nino sighed. “Very well. I will play Paris and take your wife, old man. Oh, wait. She is not actually your wife, is she?”
The slap on the face did not come as a surprise to Nino; he was asking for it. “That’s right,” he said, backing away, “hit me every time I tell the truth, and reward me whenever I do wrong. Just tell me what you want-kill a rival, kill a friend, kill a maidenhead-and I’ll do it. But don’t ask me to respect you afterwards.”
AS MAESTRO AMBROGIO walked back to his workshop later that night, he could not stop thinking of the conversation he had overheard. How could there be such perversity at large in the world, let alone in his own city? And why did no one move to stop it? He suddenly felt old and obsolete, and began to wish he had never gone to Palazzo Salimbeni in the first place and never overheard those wicked plans.
When he arrived at his workshop, he found the blue door unlocked. Hesitating on the threshold, he wondered briefly whether he had forgotten to lock it when he left, but when he could not hear Dante barking, he began to fear a break-in. “Hello?” He pushed open the door and stepped inside fearfully, confused by the burning lamps. “Who is here?”
Almost immediately, someone pulled him away from the door and closed it firmly behind him. When he turned to face his adversary, however, he saw that it was no malevolent stranger, but Romeo Marescotti. And right next to him stood Friar Lorenzo with Dante in his arms, holding the dog’s mouth closed.
“Heaven be praised!” exclaimed Maestro Ambrogio, looking at the youngsters and marveling at their full beards. “Back from foreign lands at last?”
“Not so foreign,” said Romeo, limping slightly as he walked over to the table to sit down. “We’ve been in a monastery not far from here.”
“Both of you?” asked the painter, dumbfounded.
“Lorenzo,” said Romeo, grimacing as he stretched out his leg, “saved my life. They left me for dead-the Salimbenis, in the cemetery-but he found me and brought me back to life. These past months-I should have been dead, but for him.”
“God,” said Friar Lorenzo, putting down the dog at last, “wanted you to live. And he wanted me to help you.”
“God,” said Romeo, retrieving a bit of his former mischief, “wants a lot from us, doesn’t he?”
“You could not,” said Maestro Ambrogio, looking around for wine and cups, “have returned at a better time. For I have just heard-”
“We have heard it, too,” Romeo cut him off, “but I don’t care. I am not leaving her with him. Lorenzo wanted me to wait until I had recovered fully, but I am not sure I ever will. We have men and horses. Giulietta’s sister, Monna Giannozza, wants her out of Salimbeni’s clutches as much as we do.” The young man leaned back on his chair, slightly out of breath from talking. “Now, you’re the master of frescoes, so you know all the houses. I need you to paint me a map of Palazzo Salimbeni-”
“Pardon me,” said Maestro Ambrogio, shaking his head in bewilderment, “but what exactly is it that you have heard?”
Romeo and Friar Lorenzo glanced at each other.
“I understood,” said the monk, defensively, “that Giulietta was married to Salimbeni some weeks ago. Is this not true?”
“And that is really,” asked the painter, “all you have heard?”
Once again, the young men looked at each other.
“What is it, Maestro?” Romeo frowned in anticipation. “Don’t tell me she is already carrying his child?”
“Heavens, no!” laughed the painter, suddenly giddy. “Quite the opposite.”
Romeo looked at him with narrow eyes. “I am aware that she has known him for three weeks now”-he swallowed with difficulty, as if the words were making him sick-“but I am hoping she has not yet grown too fond of his embraces.”
“My dearest friends,” said Maestro Ambrogio, locating a bottle at last, “brace yourselves for a most unusual story.”
V.IV
Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg’d.
Give me my sin again
IT WAS DAWN BY THE TIME Janice and I finally fell asleep in my hotel room, both of us collapsing on a bed of documents, our heads spinning with family lore. We had spent all night going back and forth between now and 1340, and by the time our eyes finally fell shut, Janice knew almost as much about the Tolomeis, the Salimbenis, the Marescottis, and their Shakespearean alter egos as I did. I had shown her every scrap of paper in our mother’s box, including the mangy volume of Romeo and Juliet and the notebook full of sketches. Amazingly, she had not disputed my taking the silver crucifix and wearing it around my neck; she was more interested in our family tree and in tracing her own ancestry back to Giulietta’s sister, Giannozza.