Quattrocento Read online

  Matt felt his heart grow still. Sculpted from the white stone were three irises, tied by a ribbon, the petals so thin and delicate that the light shone through them. He had found Anna at last.

  How can this be? Matt thought. It was only a few weeks ago that I held her hand. She launched a tiny paper airplane. I folded it while I was talking to her—about what? What was it she had been saying? He remembered the paper, could feel how thick and stiff it was, how it felt to fold and crease it. He could see her next to him, feel her hand in his, even hear her laugh. But he couldn’t remember what she had said.

  This was Anna, Matt thought. This is all that is left. Dust and air. From a wave of possibility to a memory, and then to nothing at all. Everything fades and disappears, stolen by time. Time, not love, conquers all.

  Matt touched the irises, as soft as the silk of the dresses that she wore. Eternally fresh and never to wilt, they might almost have been laid on the top last week. Faith. What good is faith now? The chord was eternal, but the music was not. It had a beginning and an ending, and he knew that here, under his hand, was the ending.

  But something in him refused to accept the cold evidence before him, tangible and real as it was. He knew this was the ending, but what did that mean? Knowing was what lost me Anna and the world I found, he thought. As he looked at the smooth white marble, the image of a drawing came to mind. He could see himself, lifting it out of the drawer. A drawing of a man. The penitent, waiting to be baptized. “That’s mine,” Anna had answered him, when he had said how good it was. But he had already known it was hers. Just as the same man, naked and cold, knew without knowing what he would find. A different kind of knowing.

  “A man walks along a street on a sunny day. He glances at a shop window …” Kalil’s words came back to him. This is the window, Matt thought. Not the marble top, or the casket, but the church, the world around him. As real as it seems, what I see is no more than a reflection of what I know. Empty your mind of what you know, he told himself, and find the world that lies beyond.

  Matt set the candle down on the marble lid. Going back to the altar he gathered up all the candles he could find and then carried them back, cradled in his arms, and piled them on the floor next to the sarcophagus. He took one and held it, the wick inches away from the steadily burning flame of the candle on the casket, and thought back to the day he had arrived at the villa. He could see it with perfect clarity—the large kitchen, the full table, Rodrigo bantering with Lisl. He felt the heat of the open hearth and smelled the pig turning on the spit and the herbs hanging from the ceiling and heard the crackling of the fire and then laughter, coming in the door, and there she was. And seeing Anna as he had that very first time, her gaze barely even touching him, he lit the candle and set it on the lid.

  One by one, moment by moment and day by day, all the different ways he had come to know her, he lit the candles until he had lit them all, standing them next to each other until there was a row and then another and another, a glowing sea of Anna as he knew her.

  When he was done, Matt stood at the foot of the casket, hands on the lid. “I am a mountain lion,” he said. “And I beg for mercy.”

  He climbed up on the other casket and sat, cross-legged, his coat draped around his shoulders. Beyond memory or thought, in a world even beyond faith, his being was filled with the presence of Anna, the woman he loved, in the constellation of flames dancing next to him, silent in the night.

  His cheek pillowed on linen, Matt woke slowly. Eyes closed, he luxuriated in the feel of the coarsely woven fabric, soft compared to the hard stone he lay on. Hard stone. He opened his eyes and raised himself on his hands. Aching and stiff, his body protesting, he looked down at his pillow, a folded blue coat. Next to it lay a long sword, the tooled scabbard attached to a woven leather belt, and a pair of leather boots, the soft uppers drooping to the side. His white linen shirt was secured by a braided silver belt, and on his legs were hose.

  Matt swung his legs over and jumped down from the casket, hanging on to the marble until he could gain his balance. He stretched, willing his body awake. Candles gone, the bare marble of the casket next to him shone in the light from the stained glass window high up on the chapel wall. Swaths of red and pale yellow, green and purple, colored the marble, surrounding a patch that was still white. Long and wide, the whiteness was shaped like a sun with rays curved like fire.

  Matt looked up at the window. He reached inside the folded doublet. The prism was there. The sunlight danced and shone inside the beveled glass as he laid it on the marble, a small sun inside the larger white one cast through the window by the strong light of the morning sun. With a heave and a grunt he dragged the heavy oak prie-dieu from its place in front of the della Robbia Madonna over to the tall window. Prism in hand, he climbed up and, balancing in front of the metal frame, rotated the glass sun until it slipped into place, clicking home into the surrounding frame of lead.

  Matt jumped down and stood at the head of the casket, feeling the sun on his back, suffusing him with its warmth even through the stained glass. He watched the miniature sun, a glowing ultramarine blue surrounded by rainbows of fire, creep across the lid as outside the real sun climbed in the sky. The stillness of the church deepened, dust dancing in the motionless light, as the image of the sun slipped from the carved irises down across the inlaid porphyry, the random pattern of sticks and circles he remembered from the studiolo. As it reached the exact center the vibration that he had felt rising within him from the flagstones beneath his feet and the air around him inside him coalesced into a sound he felt rather than heard, a resonance beyond music, an infinite world of overtones and harmonics within the beauty of its one magnificent tone.

  In the center of the glowing sun a line sprang to life, bright white, the blue of the sun canceling the blue of the inlay. The line was blurred, as though deep under water. The vanishing point, Matt thought, and he shifted to the side, his eyes on the line. Feeling something under the soft sole of his boot, he looked down. Scuffing with his toe, a gold sun came to light against the paving stones. Standing on it, the white line came into brilliant focus, connecting a chapel at one end to a villa at the other. Matt reached in, his hand passing through the chapel, the white line tracing its way across the back of his hand as he followed it to the villa. He tried to close his fingers around the tiny emerald irises glowing like a constellation inside, but they vanished when he touched them, leaving his fingertips stinging as though he had brushed the invisible tendrils of a jellyfish.

  Just as abruptly as it had appeared, the scene vanished, the star moving closer to the irises carved in the lid. Leaning his weight on his hands on the marble, warm with the sun, Matt closed his eyes. It was there, burned on his memory, the path from the chapel to the villa. How long it would take he had no idea, but the way was clear. He stood up and stepped back out of the light, feeling the cool air of the church wash over him.

  The nave, as he walked through it, was decorated with the rich trappings of the Carmines. Passing the Brancacci chapel he saw that the fresco of the crucifixion of Saint Peter was only half finished, the unplastered part of the wall stenciled with the red drawing of the sinopia. A table laden with colors and tools stood in the center of the chapel, the floor by the wall protected by a rough drop cloth, splattered with paint and plaster.

  Emerging from the dusk of the church, Matt was again dazzled by the brilliance of the morning sun. White on white, shadows slowly resolved, taking on substance, the vague form in front of him becoming an old woman, bent, sweeping the steps of the church. Without a cloud in the sky, it would be a hot day.

  A young man walked up the steps. Long nose, narrow eyes under arched eyebrows, a lower lip slightly protruding with a strong chin to balance it and a sharp jaw, a red doublet and a shirt with a white collar, he passed Matt with barely a glance.

  “Buon giorno, Madre Lisabetta,” the man greeted the old woman.

  “Giorno, Filippino,” she replied without looking up, as
she kept on sweeping.

  chapter 27

  Matt, walking through the night from the farm where the cart had left him the evening before, reached the place where the simple track to the villa left the main road north to Urbino. The air was clear and cool, soft with the rich scents of late summer, lavender and rosemary and ripening hay. As the black of the night turned to gray, pale colors appeared, filling in like light washes of watercolor. Rising above the ridge, the early-morning sun dappled the road with shadows as the cicadas, warming up, began to scrape one by one. The wood by the road soon resonated with birdcalls, answered from the tall stand of hay in the narrow field between the path and the hillside.

  The morning breeze died, the trees and fields falling still until the only motion was Matt walking along the road, the supple leather of his boots white with dust. As the sun reached toward the meridian, high overhead, time seemed to slow to a halt, refracted by the glaze of the heat into the steady buzz of the cicadas, rising and falling like an ocean swell on a calm day. There was no past, no future, nothing but the world he walked through, as it was just then. What memories he had were of the morning, and the walk during the night, and the long cart ride and the day before. Frescoes, and a chapel, the city, and, ahead of him, the villa, and Anna. The rest was all a dream, fading under the hot sun like fugitive colors, crowded out by the scent of wild oregano and thyme and the beauty of the tapered cypresses that lined the dusty road, the curve of the hills against the sky.

  Thirsty, Matt stopped at the sight of a trickle of water seeping down the hillside from the olive grove above. He scrambled up the steep slope to the welcoming shelter of the trees, a canopy of silvery green like a school of fingerlings against the sky above. Reaching the source of the stream, a pipe that had been driven into a rock ledge, he found an old cup, the majolica chipped and faded, hooked on a stick. He drank, enjoying the coolness of the water against his face as much as the wetness and the fresh, clean taste of it, and then put the cup back, careful not to disturb the frog willing itself into invisibility under the nearby fern, motionless but for the steady pulse in its sagging chin.

  Matt walked farther up through the grove. Next to an old ladder leaning against a trunk several willow baskets lay tumbled together, ready for the harvest of olives ripening on the branches. The edge of the canopy was underlit by blue, as though the sea lay beyond the trees. A field of asters greeted Matt as he stepped from the grove, and he paused to enjoy the sight. An afternoon breeze had sprung up, rippling the sea of flowers and carrying a sound from far across the field, heavy, like a bear moving through the brush. Matt squinted, shading his eyes against the bright sun as he looked to see what it was.

  Green scales coruscating, wings lifting like a hawk balancing itself, the manticore stepped sideways, arching its neck. From across the sea of flowers the beast watched Matt, its eyes opalescent in the sun, its head barely moving as the seconds became minutes. Finally it turned again, stamping its foot and twitching its tail, the forked end snapping like a whip, and then loped down the field and leaped up into the sky with a sweep of its powerful wings. Curving around low over the trees, forelegs held up, it gave a long harsh cry.

  As if in echo, the faint silvery call of trumpets came to Matt from deep in the woods across the field, punctuating the high tenor yelp of dogs on the hunt. Each horn had its own note, sounding again and again, distinct but blending with the others. Like the scent of fire, the call aroused a sense of danger in Matt. Orlando, he thought. He must not waste time. He drew his sword and checked the edge, a sharp, unbroken line of silver, and then slid the blade back into its sheath.

  Matt crossed the field, the flowers parting and then rejoining behind him, leaving no trace of his passing. Entering the forest the air was cool and fragrant with the resinous scent of hemlock. The yelping of the dogs, drawing closer, rose to an almost hysterical pitch, accompanied by the high whinny of horses and the heavy clump of their hooves on the ground as they forced their way through the underbrush. The shouts of men calling back and forth echoed through the trees.

  Matt advanced as fast as he could, intent on finding what he knew was somewhere in the woods. Black and brown, gone so fast they seemed a trick of the light in the shadows, lean hounds slipped past through the brush. A man appeared, no more than a glimpse of bright colors against the green, a black stave slashing a bush aside. Seeing a lightening of the canopy off to his left, Matt angled across the forest. Crowns meeting far overhead, the trees opened to form a natural amphitheater, their black trunks surrounding it like mute spectators. Carpeted with leaves and grass, the clearing was no larger than a man could throw an ax. Matt emerged from between two trees and stopped at the edge of the grass.

  The ring of his sword as he unsheathed it, loud in the quiet of the clearing, stopped the tall figure armored in black on the other side, his own sword in his hands. Beyond him Orlando lay propped against a tree, holding his leg, fear plain on his face as he looked up at the bronze eagle, wings raised and beak open in midcry, nodding down at him from the helmet framed against the leaves and the sky above.

  The knight turned to face Matt and raised the blade, the point reaching toward the sky. He began to laugh, a low rumble that grew louder and louder as it echoed across the clearing, rising to the trees and filling the still air, resonating in Matt’s ears after it had died away again to silence. The knight advanced across the clearing, an oncoming avalanche of polished black armor and chain mail, greaves and arm guards and armored boots and the empty black gash of the visor and, riding above, beak open and wings raised, the bronze eagle.

  Standing his ground, Matt lifted his own sword high, as high as his arms could reach, and then sharply reversed it. He brought the point down as hard as he could, burying it deep in the ground. As the hilt quivered, he unfastened the belt around his waist and tossed it to the side. A quick turn of the pin fastening the silver belt holding his doublet and it was loosed, the coat falling open. He shrugged it off and threw it aside to land crumpled among the dead leaves and grass. With a firm pull the sword was free of the ground, the tip arcing around as he lifted it high in both hands, ready to meet his opponent.

  Closer, step by step, the blade came on like a black line slashed into the green of the forest. Almost within striking distance of Matt it rose, the tip reaching higher, pausing like a hawk ready to fall from the sky, and there it stayed, the massive figure of the knight frozen as he looked down at his prey.

  Three irises, precious stones set in gold and silver, shone in the subdued light against the whiteness of Matt’s shirt. He raised his own sword high, angled to the right, the tip back over his shoulder, and then with all his might he lunged forward. His blade sliced through the air to land with a clash against the other, the steel of both ringing as his slid down, stopping only when it slammed hard against the hilt.

  Without pausing, Matt’s blade soared up, circled, and fell against the other once again, the clashing of the steel ringing out even louder, the note true and pure. The knight stepped back, uncertain, and then with a quick circling of his sword threw Matt’s off and gathered himself to attack.

  Matt, leg forward, braced himself against the onslaught, his arms giving only slightly as the knight’s blade landed against his with a tremendous crash, the same note thrumming through his arms and torso as it filled the air. The knight seemed to hesitate again, as though confused by the sound. Wheeling back around, he attacked again and again, but Matt parried, held, crossed, met each slashing attack, always ready for the blade when it descended on him. Again and again it fell, the note ringing until it became one continuous sound in the air, and then the knight, a last furious assault spent, lurched away, sword dangling.

  Matt paused, chest heaving wildly, throat burning as he dragged air into his lungs. He fought to hold on to his sword, his hands numb from the vibration still ringing in his ears. His eyes stinging with sweat, the leather against his skin slick and hot, he watched the knight stagger as he regained his balance and t
hen turn back to him, raising his sword, ready to attack again. Not waiting, Matt charged forward, the silver edge of his sword high and gleaming with a rainbow of color in the dappled sunlight. At the last moment, he dropped the point of the sword and drove it straight into the black slit of the visor.

  The force of the impact lifted the knight and threw him back, his arms spread wide, his sword tumbling to the ground. He hung in the air and then toppled over to land with a hollow clang on the ground. Matt, hands entwined on the hilt, stumbled forward, gasping for breath, the point of his sword still buried inside the helmet, the knight lying motionless and limp. Matt let go of the hilt and the sword fell over sideways to the ground as he sank to his knees, spent.

  Matt rested, sitting back on his heels, as his breathing slowed, and then reached for his sword. About to clean it on the knight’s sleeve, he stopped. There was no blood. The blade was clean.

  Matt reached over to unlatch the visor, but the helmet fell away from his hand, rolling to its side, the eagle lying in the leaves as though it had fallen from the sky. Matt pushed the cuirass and then lifted it by the neck hole. It pulled free, the sleeves of the chain mail shirt slipping out of the heavy gloves and dangling like the shed skin of a snake. He tossed it aside and pushed apart the rest of the armor. Empty, the pieces lay scattered in the leaves like pieces of a forgotten dream.

  A giraffe, a hippopotamus, a lion and two cubs, the topiary menagerie stood guard as Matt passed. Down the short flight of steps, worn with age, to the lower garden, he followed one of the paths between the flower beds to the pool in the center, where a dolphin leapt, half in and half out of the water. By the side of the pool was a table, veined marble, and on it a majolica jug and glasses, one almost full, with a bright circle of thinly sliced lemon floating in it. Matt settled into one of the chairs and poured water into another of the glasses. Circling the rim with his finger, a note rose in the air, high and pure.