Black, she had said. And white.
Dominicans.
I lay awake in bed, one question leading to another. Was Stufa behind the break-in? If so, was he acting on his own? Was he getting back at me, in other words, or was it something more orchestrated, more sinister? But why had the monks taken a drawing of Faustina? Could it have been a whim? No, it was more far more likely to be part of a campaign to gather evidence. They were attempting to identify an area in which I might be vulnerable. I didn’t like where this was leading. Did they know about Faustina? If so, how much did they know? And so on, and so on — for hours … Faces loomed and gaped. Plans formed, then fell apart.
The next morning my mother woke up complaining that she couldn’t breathe. I sat by her bed and held her hand.
‘It’s the dust,’ she gasped. ‘It’s all the dust.’
I looked at Lapa, who rolled her shoulders fatalistically and turned away.
My mother gripped my hand so hard that her nails left a series of tiny crescent moons imprinted on my palm.
‘Don’t go,’ she said.
I had only slept in snatches, and my head ached from all the wine I had drunk with the Englishman. I was still struggling to make sense of the break-in and the missing page, but my questions had become mundane, prosaic. Who had the drawing? What did they want with it?
My mother’s grip loosened, then tightened again. ‘Thank you.’
‘What for?’
‘For letting me live here. For taking care of me.’
‘You’re my mother —’
She looked at me, and something shifted deep down, at the bottom of her eyes, and I remembered all the insults Jacopo had flung at me.
‘You are my mother, aren’t you?’ I said.
Her gaze tilted, then flattened, like the slats on shutters. She seemed relieved, even grateful, and I had no idea why that might be so.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course.’
Towards the end of the afternoon, Francesco Redi appeared with his physician’s green leather case, his long, almost womanly face more solemn than usual. He had just been subjected to another of Vittoria’s infamous tongue-lashings. She didn’t believe he had studied medicine. He knew nothing. Nothing. He wasn’t even fit to tend an animal. He opened the saphenous vein just above my mother’s ankle and bled her, then he administered a sedative. Of course, he ought to be used to the Grand Duchess by now, he went on. He’d been treating her for long enough.
Later, as I showed him out, I asked if he thought she might be dying.
‘There have been moments,’ he said, ‘when I almost wished that were the case.’ He crossed himself, then stepped into the street.
I returned to my mother’s bedside.
‘I behaved badly,’ she murmured.
‘Don’t worry about that now.’
‘I was weak …’
I sat with her until she fell into a shallow sleep. Her eyes flickered beneath their lids; a pulse beat feebly in her neck. She had not defended me. She hadn’t even realized I needed defending. I no longer blamed her for that. No one had stood much of a chance against Jacopo. I would rather have chosen my life than had it shaped by somebody who wished me harm, though who was to say it would have been better?
As I prepared to set out for the apothecary I was filled with an agitation that verged on panic. I felt paralysed by even the smallest decisions — what coat to wear, which route to take. I hurried down Via de’ Serragli and over the nearest bridge. The moon that hung above the Grand Duke’s granary was red and swollen, almost close enough to touch; it looked as if it might burst at any moment, soaking the streets of Santo Spirito in blood. On Porta Rossa, I came across two men locked in such a struggle that they had become a single, staggering beast. Edging past, I saw an arm break loose and land a fierce blow. The creature, having harmed itself, let out a bellow. A nearby puddle shivered.
By the time I reached Via Lontanmorti, it was after eleven. At the end of the street, in a high recess in the wall, was a statue of the Virgin, illuminated by a single candle. That was all the light there was. I didn’t want to wake Faustina’s uncle, nor could I afford to draw any attention to myself. Remembering the passageway she had told me about, I moved beyond the apothecary, passed beneath a low, grimy archway and turned left into a cul-de-sac. She had said the entrance was halfway along. I ran my hands over the wall until I located it. No wider than my shoulders, it had the dimensions of a small door. I entered, inching forwards, one step at a time. The ground sloped downwards, beneath the building, then disappeared. I had reached the ditch or drain that she had spoken of. I stopped and looked behind me. A ghostly grey rectangle shimmered in the blackness. The alley. It didn’t seem as if I had been followed.
I faced back into the dark. A cold, sour smell rose out of the drain. Far below, I thought I could hear running water. Bracing one hand against each wall, I reached out with my right foot. I judged the gap to be about the length of one long stride. My left foot placed at the very edge of the drop, I stepped back with my right and then sprang forwards, into nothing. When I landed on the other side, I felt I had crossed a bottomless pit filled with the predatory, the unwitting — the dead. It was peculiar to think that Machiavelli might have done the same.
I turned right. In complete darkness, I groped my way forwards, hands outstretched. The atmosphere was damp, and oddly thick. Whenever I paused, I was deafened by my own breathing. I turned left, then left again. At last, I emerged into the yard Faustina had described. I tipped my head back and gulped fresh air from the sky, then began to explore the back wall of the building. When I had found the piece of wire, I followed it downwards until my hand closed around a key.
I had heard it said that if you want to know what paradise smells like, you only have to visit an apothecary. Alone, at night, this seemed more true than ever. As I crept through the back room, all kinds of scents and perfumes made themselves known to me. Rose petals one moment, mustard seeds the next. Then ginger. Molasses. Sage. I found the stairs, began to climb. In the silence, my heart sounded noisy, clumsy, like someone running down a street in heavy boots.
I stepped out on to the third floor and was about to reach for Faustina’s door handle when the door opened, and her face appeared. She jumped when she saw me. I slipped past her, into the room. She closed the door, then moved towards me.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m sorry. I wanted to come earlier —’
‘Not so loud. My uncle’s only one floor down.’
I told her about the theft of the drawing.
The small space between her eyebrows darkened, as if it had been shaded in. ‘You think it means they’re interested in me?’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ I said.
‘I hope they don’t know. About who my mother is, I mean.’
‘How could they?’
She shrugged.
I asked if she had noticed anything unusual recently.
‘Like what?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. Has anyone been watching you?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘We’ll have to be careful from now on,’ I said. ‘Even more careful.’