fit-“and carry her off. Fra Marciano, help him if he needs it.”
Neither Zalumma nor I budged. “My mother cannot be moved-it might injure her,” I insisted, indignant.
Fra Domenico listened silently; then, with movements calm and deliberate, he parted Zalumma’s protective arms and grasped my mother’s waist.
He lifted her with ease, forcing Zalumma to fall back. I reached vainly for my mother as her head, with its chaotic tangles of hair swinging, rose from my lap. Flinching only slightly at her flailing limbs, Domenico slung her over one shoulder, as a baker might a sack of flour. My mother’s legs beat against his chest and torso, her arms against his back, yet he seemed not to feel it.
“Stop!” Zalumma cried out at the monk. She was almost as terrifying a sight as her mistress: The scarf beneath her cap was askew, permitting some of her billowing curls to escape; worse, she had been struck in the eye, which was already swollen half shut; the cheekbone beneath was dull red and shiny, promising to become a magnificent bruise.
“Leave her be!” I shouted at Fra Domenico. I struggled to stand, but bystanders stood on my skirts, and I fell again.
“Let her rise!” a male voice commanded above me. People made room where there was none. A strong arm reached down to grasp mine and pulled me to my feet; I rose, gasping, to stare up into the eyes of a stranger-a tall, thin man wearing the distinguished dress of a
I pulled away from him immediately and followed the implacable Domenico, who was already making his way through the crowd. Forgetting he was in God’s house, my father hurried after Domenico, demanding he be gentler with my mother.
Domenico’s companion, Fra Marciano, offered Zalumma and me an arm for support. Furious, silent, Zalumma refused it, though she limped noticeably. I, too, waved his arm away. But Fra Marciano’s demeanor remained concerned and kindly. He was frail and older, with thinning hair; his eyes revealed a gentle goodness.
“Be reassured,” he told me. “The lady is in God’s own hands; He will let no harm come to her.”
I did not answer. Instead I walked, wordless as the others, behind Fra Domenico and his burden until we arrived at the sacristry.
It was a small room, far colder than the sanctuary, which was warmed by hundreds of bodies; I could see my own breath. Fra Domenico carried my mother to the only place possible: a narrow wooden table, which my father first covered with her soft fur cape. Once the monk set her down, my father pushed him away with a vehemence that startled me. The two men, breathing hard, shared a look of pure loathing; I thought they would come to blows.
Domenico’s gaze flickered. At last he looked down, then turned and lumbered away. Fra Marciano remained with us, apparently hoping to lend what comfort or aid he could.
At some point during her journey, my mother’s fit had passed. Now, as she lay stuporous and limp, my father removed his crimson mantle and covered her with it. Count Pico laid a hand upon his shoulder.
My father tried to shrug it off. “How could God permit such a thing?” His tone was bitter. “And why did Fra Girolamo permit her to be handled by that beast?”
Pico spoke softly, though his tone was oddly hard. “Fra Domenico is always by Fra Girolamo’s side; you know that, Antonio. Perhaps God has let Madonna Lucrezia suffer this indignity just so that He might raise her up all the more greatly. Her healing will be a marvelous testament to all. Have faith. Believe in God’s greatness. He has not brought us this far to disappoint us.”
“I pray not,” my father said. He cupped his hands over his eyes. “I cannot bear to see her so. When she learns what has happened… the shame will be more than she can bear.”
He parted his hands and gazed down at my sleeping mother, so sallow and pale her features seemed cast from wax-wax smeared and flecked with darkening blood. Gently, he brushed a disheveled lock of hair from her brow; as he did, I chanced to glimpse Zalumma, who stood opposite him.
The frank hatred in her expression astonished me. It was well outside the behavior appropriate to a slave, yet I understood. She loved my mother as a sister and despised my father with equal fervor. Until this moment, however, she had kept her feelings toward him concealed.
I was simply troubled. Some time ago, I had laid my worries about the source of my mother’s fits to rest. Zalumma’s tale about her brother and the injury to his head had convinced me that the cause of my mother’s malady was natural. Now, after her terrifying utterance before Savonarola, I was no longer certain. Could a soul as gentle and pious as my mother’s be a tool of the Evil One?
For a quarter of an hour, our unhappy group waited in the unheated sacristy. I wrapped my mantle tightly about me to no avail. The perspiration from my earlier exertion chilled me through; my breath condensed and turned icy on the wool. My poor mother, in her stupor, shivered despite my father’s mantle and the fur cloak on which she lay.
At last, the heavy door opened with a creak; we turned. Savonarola appeared in the doorway, standing next to the burly Fra Domenico and looking far smaller than he had in the pulpit.
My father stepped next to my mother and rested a hand on her arm. His expression was hard; he stared at Fra Domenico even as he spoke to Savonarola. “We have no need of
“He is my right hand,” Fra Girolamo said. “If he does not enter,
My father blinked and lowered his gaze, defeated. The two monks stepped inside; Domenico’s expression was guarded.
Just behind them in the open doorway, the red-haired, pockmarked priest from the Duomo appeared.
“Surely God has sent you to Florence, Fra Girolamo!” he exclaimed, his face florid with adulation. “You bring countless sinners to repentance each day. You are this city’s salvation!”
Fra Girolamo struggled not to be swayed by such flattery. His face and gaze were slightly averted in a sincere effort to remain humble, yet the words clearly pleased him. In his high nasal voice, he countered, “It is the Lord Who shall save Florence, not I. Keep your devotion focused on God, not on any man.” He paused, then said, his tone firm, “I have other business now.”
His latter words were meant to dismiss the priest, who now stood blocking the entry to the sacristy, as if unwilling to let the friar pass until he granted a boon. But instead of leaving, the young man looked into the sacristy. “Ah! This is the woman possessed of many devils!”
Fra Girolamo gave him a sharp look. “We will let God be the judge of her affliction.” He glanced pointedly at Fra Domenico, who had been sympathetically inclined to the priest; the towering monk took a reluctant step toward the door.
The priest sidled gracefully past the larger monk and stepped inside the chamber before he could be barred. “But Fra Girolamo, you said it yourself: The Evil One tried to stop the people from hearing the message God has given you. No one would ever have uttered such words as she did if the Devil himself had not authored them.” His pale eyes brightened with unsettling conviction. “She did the very same thing in the Duomo-cried out words which the Devil forced from her.”
Fra Domenico listened, spellbound; even the gentle Fra Marciano stepped forward from our group to hear the charismatic young priest.
“It’s true, Babbo,” Domenico said to his master. “Your presence would provoke devils. How angry you must make them! How frightened! Here is a chance to show the true power of the Lord.”
Uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, yet unable to ignore it, Savonarola moved past Domenico and the priest until he stood at my mother’s side, directly across from my father and Pico.
“Is this true?” Fra Girolamo quietly asked my father. “Did she utter strange words in the Duomo before a fit?”
Silent, cautious, my father looked to me and Zalumma. She was brazen, challenging, her cap now removed, her wild blue-black hair as intimidating as Medusa’s serpentine crown.
“No,” she lied. “She has suffered from fits after an injury to her head, but there is naught of the Devil in it.”
Savonarola moved to my mother’s head and gently laid his hands upon her shoulders; his timidity evaporated, and he said with confidence, “Let us pray silently.”
