Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa

“How long ago?” Salvatore asked.

“I don’t know-a year, perhaps two. He said he worked for the Medici. I decided to do what he told me-to go to Santissima Annunziata and tell the old man about the letters.”

Salvatore glanced back at the soldier who held Zalumma. Simply glanced, and lifted a finger.

I followed his gaze. The soldier’s knife made a quick, small movement beneath Zalumma’s jaw. Quick and small and simple; I heard the sound of fluid spilling. She would have fallen straight down, but he caught and lowered her. She went to the floor languid and graceful as a swan.

“Call a servant,” Salvatore told the soldier. “Get something to clean this up.”

I screamed and reared up; Francesco pushed me straight back down.

Salvatore faced me. “You are lying, Madonna Lisa. You know that the young man’s name is not Giancarlo; it is Gian Giacomo. And you know the old man’s name.”

I sobbed, hysterical, unable to stop, to speak. Zalumma was dead and I wanted to die.

Francesco had to speak very loudly to be heard over my weeping. “Come, now, Lisa, shall I send for little Matteo? We can bring him in here, as well. Or will you tell us the name of your old man?”

“Bring him,” I gasped. “Bring him, and show me he is alive. Because if he is not, you will have to kill me.”

Francesco let go the most irritated of sighs, but Salvatore nodded to him to leave the room. He returned moments later, followed by the frightened young nursemaid, stooping as she led Matteo in by the hand.

He laughed and wanted to come to me; he held out his arms for me. But when he saw Zalumma on the floor and his mother sobbing, he began to cry himself. I reached for him as Francesco lifted him up and handed him back to the nursemaid; my fingers grazed the dimpled back of his hand.

“All right,” Francesco clucked, and closed the door over them.

He and Salvatore turned to me. “The name, Lisa,” Francesco said.

I could not see Zalumma where she had fallen behind the table, but I sensed her body the way one might sense the warmth of a fire. I bowed my head and looked down at my hands, and said very softly, “Leonardo da Vinci.”

LXIX

I did not look at Zalumma as they led me out; I did not want to remember her as I remembered my mother, dull-eyed and spattered with blood. Francesco and Salvatore were speaking as Claudio led me away; Salvatore’s tone was heated. “Now shall we have to amend the plan? If she has told this to others, to this Leonardo…”

Francesco was cool. “Isabella said she has had no time to go to Santissima Annunziata. She discovered the letter before she went to see her father; she has been nowhere since then, except to his house and to his funeral.”

They were drifting words which meant nothing to me at the time. They would make a difference later.

For the next few weeks, I was confined to my chamber. Different men stood guard in the corridor outside my door. Francesco told the servants that I had been discovered spying for the Medici, and that the Signoria had not yet decided whether to bring charges; out of kindness, they had permitted him to keep me under close watch at our palazzo.

On the first day they locked me in my room, I was alone for an hour and, despite crippling grief, I realized that I should hide my father’s stiletto before I was searched or undressed. I slid it deep into the feather layer of my mattress, on the far side by the wall; and when, that night, Elena came with a tray of food and the intention of unlacing my gown, I faced her without concern.

Elena’s ever-serene gaze and smile had vanished; she was troubled in my presence and could not meet my eyes.

I struggled very hard to speak coherently, without tears. “I want to wash her,” I said.

Elena set the tray down on the table near the hearth and glanced at me, then swiftly dropped her gaze to the floor. “What’s that, Madonna?”

“I would like to help wash Zalumma’s body. She was very dear to me. And…” My voice began to break. “I want to see her properly buried. If you would ask Francesco-he could send a guard with me. She helped birth me. Please… if you would ask him…”

Saddened, she bowed her head. “I will ask him, Madonna. He has no heart and will refuse, but I will ask.”

I sat in a chair in front of the cold hearth, closed my eyes, and pressed steepled hands to my lips, but I was too overwhelmed to pray. Elena moved beside me and gently, briefly, touched my forearm.

“I will do my best to convince him, Madonna.” She hesitated. “It is terrible, what they did to Zalumma… They say she was a spy, that she was dangerous, but I know better. I was not always with Ser Francesco’s household. I came with my mistress, Madonna Nannina. I loved her so, and when she died…” She shook her head. “I wanted to go to another house. I wish now I had. I am afraid of him.”

“And Matteo,” I said, anguished. “If I could know whether-”

Her expression lightened; she looked in my eyes then. “Your child is well. They haven’t hurt him-I suppose that is too heartless even for Ser Francesco to consider. They are keeping him downstairs, near the servants.”

The ache in my chest eased; I put a hand to it. Emboldened, I asked, “And Isabella?”

“Gone. Escaped-” She broke off and said no more, realizing that she might be endangering herself. She unlaced my gown and put it in the wardrobe, and I was left alone. Outside in the corridor, I heard the scrape of a chair against the floor, and a heavy body settling into it. Claudio, I supposed, or the soldier.

I was dazed that first night, overwhelmed. I had lost so many: my mother, Giuliano, my father… but Zalumma had always been there, caring for me. Zalumma, who would have known how to comfort me now that Matteo had been taken away. I told myself repeatedly that Salvatore might want to hurt Matteo, but Francesco would never allow it. But my hope for my child was a fine thread; if I clung to it tightly, it would break.

I would not go to my massive feather bed with the dagger hidden in it. Instead, I crawled onto Zalumma’s little cot and wept there until I fell asleep.

Francesco, of course, would not hear of my assisting with Zalumma’s burial or attending the service; he let the disposition of her corpse remain a cruel mystery.

Until my father and Zalumma died, until Matteo was taken from me, I had not realized how thoroughly hatred could usurp a heart. As my father Antonio had been at the thought of losing his wife to another, I was consumed. I dreamed of murder; I knew I could never rest until I saw my father’s dagger buried in Francesco’s chest, up to the hilt.

Your temper is hot, the astrologer had said, a furnace in which the sword of justice must be forged.

I cared nothing for justice. I wanted revenge.

During the long, solitary hours, I drew out the stiletto and felt it, cold and heavy, in my hand; I convinced myself that this had been the instrument of the elder Giuliano’s murder, that my father had kept it as a reminder of his guilt. It all repeats, my mother had whispered, and at last I understood. She had not meant that we would both fall in love with men named Giuliano, or bear children who were not the spawn of their ostensible fathers, or feel imprisoned by our husbands.

You are caught in a cycle of violence, of blood and deceit. What others have begun, you must finish.

I put my finger to the dagger’s tip, deadly fine and shining, and let it pierce me, silent and sharp. Blood rilled, a dark pearl, and I put my mouth to it before it dripped onto my skirts. It tasted like metal, like the blade; I wished it had been Francesco’s.

What was to repeat? How was I meant to finish it?

I recalled, as best I could, what my mother had told me of Giuliano’s death; I contemplated each separate step.

In the Duomo, the priest had lifted the wine-filled chalice, offering it to God for blessing; this was the signal for the assassins to strike.