O, Juliet Read online

  “But why, Jacopo? Why would this family—one whose name I barely recognize—have done such a thing to me? To sink an entire cargo of silk . . .”

  “And vandalize the factory.”

  “You have evidence of that as well?”

  I had come to one side of the open study door and again did not wish to converse with my parent, clearly in the throes of unpleasantness. So I stopped and stood still, waiting for a moment to pass by without being seen.

  Jacopo Strozzi spoke with a strident tone. “Proof positive. The Monticecco, for some unnameable reason, have become the avowed enemies of the Capelletti.” Suddenly his voice grew smooth and oiled. “And now, Capello, any enemy of yours is an enemy of mine.”

  “What can be done?”

  “What is always done to saboteurs, wretched criminals. They will be exposed and they will pay for their crimes. In blood, if need be. Monticecco blood.”

  I chanced a peek around the doorframe to see the men’s eyes locked in a fierce brothers-in-battle gaze, and scurried past. I was out the front door in a moment and found waiting outside it the family litter, its four bearers snapping to attention at the sight of me. As one of them helped me in, I told him my destination and pressed a lavender-scented cloth to my nose to block the mild stench rising from the summer street and settled into the cushioned compartment. We were off.

  It was a short distance across the city of Florence from our house to Via Bardi, but one affording me sufficient time to clear my head of the dark furies of home, and begin contemplating what would surely be a pleasurable evening ahead.

  Chapter Two

  “Juliet Capelletti, here to see Lucrezia Tornabuoni.”

  The smile of the Palazzo Bardi’s doorman spread so wide I felt myself instantly welcomed into the rarefied world of the Medici. He stepped aside and bade me enter the pale green marble vestibule, pushing me back with a protective arm as a servant rushed past, half-blinded by a huge urn bursting with fresh flowers.

  “You must forgive us, signorina. We have never had such excitement in the house before. I will take you to the lady . . . our lady. . . .” He chuckled with embarrassed delight. “Soon-to-be our lady.”

  As the doorman led me toward a grand stairway, we passed a long snaking line of men assembled before a closed door. Each of them was splendidly dressed, their heads crowned with huge flared turbans in brilliant hues of silk and satin and brocade. The grouping seemed strange to me, their demeanor more reserved than their fashionable costumes. Indeed, they were remarkably silent and inward for a gang of Florentine men, who, by their very nature, talked and laughed loudly and with generous gesticulation, conducted business and deal-making at every turn.

  They barely took notice of me, for as we approached the door, it opened and everyone came to attention. The first man in line went in, passing one coming out, and I could see inside the room, which appeared to be a fine study with many shelves lined with books and scrolls. In a chair, sitting comfortably, was a bareheaded Cosimo de’ Medici, his kindly face wreathed in a smile. He put out his hand to the newly admitted Florentine, clearly a supplicant, who knelt to kiss the offered hand, murmuring, “Don Cosimo.” Then the door shut on the odd tableau.

  “Juliet!” I heard the rich, throaty voice of my friend calling from above. At the top of the stairs was Lucrezia, holding around her a dressing gown and excitedly beckoning me up to her.

  As I ascended, I passed two chattering maids, one in front of the other, carrying between their shoulders a long folded tapestry, and a liveried manservant, his arms full of unlit torches. Arrived at the landing of the noble floor, I felt myself instantly embraced, the warm fragrance of Lucrezia’s jasmine oil enveloping me.

  “Oh let me look at you, friend!” she cried, and held me at arm’s length. But as she gazed at me, I was also gifted with the sight of her. She, too, was eighteen, and, like a rare flower just opening for the first time, at the freshest peak of her beauty. She had delicately wrought cheeks and chin and nose, a generous mouth. Her hair was a thick flax, this evening arrayed in intricate twisted braids and soft curling tendrils. The green of her sparkling eyes was wonderful.

  “You are lovely! Turn, turn,” she ordered me, and I obeyed. “A gown I’ve never seen.The dusty rose suits you. And the necklace. Let me see. Juliet! These are diamonds and rubies. What is your father thinking?”

  “I’m meant to make an impression tonight,” I said with a dolorous sigh.

  Lucrezia took me by the hand and pulled me down the hall past a massive, dome-ceilinged ballroom where, by the look of its decoration—velvet and gold-shot draperies, hundreds of yet-unlit tapers in their candelabrum, flowers, and festoons of greenery—much of this evening’s festivities would take place. I could see Maestro Donatello, the city’s finest artisan, flinging his fingers to the left and right, sending his apprentices to their various tasks. “More torches to the garden!” he cried. “Pull up the hem of that curtain!”

  Farther on was a carved door through which Lucrezia led me into a bedroom, large, though not as sumptuously appointed as I might have imagined a Medici sleeping chamber to be. Two maids were emptying a steel tub, sending pailfuls of used bath-water down a well shaft. I had never seen such a thing before.

  Plumbing of the rich, I thought.

  When Lucrezia closed the door, she turned to me. “So you’re to make an impression? On your betrothed, I assume?”

  “Jacopo Strozzi is not my betrothed,” I insisted, my voice sulky. “Not yet. He hasn’t even signed the partnership papers with my father.”

  I looked around me.The bed upon which Lucrezia’s clothing and two fabulous feathered masks were laid out was enormous and gorgeously curtained, with wine-colored velvet brocade and ermine trim. I realized with quiet delight that it was draped with my papa’s wares. And while the headboard was high and painted with fantastical birds, and great wooden chests surrounded it on every side, no colorful frescoes decorated the walls, just sections of painted patterns in dark, muted colors. The only furnishings were a single cushioned chair, a plain writing desk, and a small altar to the Virgin.

  “This is the conjugal bedroom?” I asked.

  “Not Don Cosimo’s. Only Mona Contessina’s.”

  I was surprised. I’d not heard of married couples with separate bedchambers. Rudely, I nosed about the room. “No books,” I said. “Your mother-in-law-to-be does not read?”

  “Her husband doesn’t expect it of her.They’re old-fashioned in that way. Come, help me on with my things.”

  We went to the bed and I picked up the long-sleeved white silk camicia that had been embroidered with pomegranates and posies. Lucrezia laid aside her dressing gown to reveal a body of the sweetest feminine form—small breasts high and rounded, waist narrow, and hips flaring with womanly curves. I could hear the maids tittering as they carried the tub from the room, leaving my friend and me to our private conversation. She raised her arms and I slipped the garment over her head, careful to leave the hairdresser’s every curl and tendril in place.

  “Have you seen Piero today?” I asked her.

  “No. My father-in-law insists it will be bad luck.”

  “This is your betrothal ball, not your wedding day,” I told her.

  “Don Cosimo had my horoscope drawn.”

  “And that is where he derived such superstition?”

  “Yes, but also that I’m to have an extraordinary life.”

  “You’re becoming a Medici, Lucrezia. One doesn’t need an astrologer to deduce a brilliant future.” I picked up the yellow silk brocaded guarnacca studded with gold stars. The gown was ungainly for its weight, and the bodice and sleeves hung down limp over the front of its skirt. “Raise your arms,” I commanded, and dropped it on from above. “What were you thinking just then? You were somewhere else.”

  “I was thinking I would rather be marrying Don Cosimo.”

  I barked a laugh as I tightened the laces in back, cinching in Lucrezia’s already waspish waist. “And you
call me outrageous,” I said.

  “He’s a true gentleman. Polite. Affectionate. And such a scholar.”

  Lucrezia was right. Five years before he had single-handedly set all of Florence afire with Rinascimento—a rebirth of the antiquities. Afterward, any man who counted himself a member of the Medici Faction educated his sons in the classics.

  It had taken hardly any convincing of Lucrezia Tornabuoni’s father by Cosimo to hire for his heir’s thirteen-year-old wife-to-be both Greek and Latin tutors, and even one for mathematics. He wished for her to be a very great lady, he’d said. And while such an education for girls was not yet the fashion, Lucrezia had wished—and asked very sweetly—for her dearest friend, Juliet Capelletti, to receive the same benefit.

  “He has the most wonderful library in his study,” she said.

  “I saw a glimpse of it when I came in.”

  “He owns some of the rarest Greek codices that exist.”

  “Your fancy,” I observed. Lucrezia had taken to that ancient language like a bird to flight, delighting in its myths and pantheon of gods and goddesses. No one but me and her tutor knew how enamored she was of it all, as her parents believed her devoutly and altogether Christian. Those pagan leanings would have appalled them.

  I plucked the silk undergarment through the slashed shoulders and sleeves of the guarnacca, blousing them prettily.

  “There’s something in that library that would set your heart fluttering,” Lucrezia teased.

  “And what would that be?” I said with more than a touch of skepticism. I had enjoyed my education, but the Greek language had strained my intellect. I much preferred Italian.

  “A manuscript of Vita Nuova . . . from the time of Dante himself.”

  My arms fell uselessly to my sides. Lucrezia had known very well the effect of her words. The poet Dante Alighieri was like a god to me, and Vita Nuova—the story of his boyhood love for Beatrice—the stuff of my dreams.

  Lucrezia turned to face me, smiling like a cat. “When I am a lady of this household, I’ll take you in to see it. You can pore over it. Weep over it. Allow it to inspire you.”

  I hugged her and kissed her fragrant cheek. “Thank you!” I whispered passionately. “Thank you.” In her reciprocal embrace I felt Lucrezia’s joy in the simple art of giving. I had much to learn from the lady’s generous nature.

  I sought to regain my composure. “Guests will be arriving soon. We should see to your jewelry.”

  “No jewels tonight,” she demurred.

  “For what reason?” I demanded.

  “Because I am marrying into a great but altogether unostentatious family. I wish to show them I am one with them in this.” She saw my disappointment. “But I have not decided on my shoes yet.” Lucrezia seated herself on the bed and opened a chest displaying half a dozen pairs of varying colors, styles, and heels. She stuck out a foot in my direction and I fitted it with a sheath of gold velvet raised on a high platform.

  “I’ll just say no to marrying Jacopo,” I said with firm defiance.

  “And what will you do with the rest of your life? Take to a nunnery—a hopeless romantic like yourself?” Lucrezia was altogether unperturbed, knowing well it was idle talk.

  We both knew as surely as we breathed that a woman was bound to do what best benefited her parents, her husband, her children, and her church. “Her own desires”—well, no woman I knew allowed herself that luxury, nor even wasted a moment of rumination on such devilish indulgences. Lucrezia turned her foot this way and that. “This one is too high. I’ll stand as tall as Piero.”

  I next chose a soft flat slipper with a Turkish curl to the toe in pale yellow that matched her overdress.

  “Perhaps I’ll go the way of Saint Margaret of Cortona and spend my youth in fornication,” I said.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll be ‘touched by Grace’ as she was, and spend the rest of your life in your bedroom crying for your sins.”

  “Ha!”

  I put the second yellow slipper on Lucrezia’s other foot.

  “These are pretty,” she said.

  “I hate Jacopo Strozzi,” I announced, knowing that my flippancy sometimes bordered on the ridiculous.

  “It is your mother-in-law you will need fortitude to tolerate,” Lucrezia said.

  I groaned loudly at the thought. Allessandra Strozzi was famously harsh and renowned in all of Florence for the ruthlessness of her matchmaking. No one was good enough for her sons.

  “Besides, you barely know Jacopo Strozzi,” she added. “I’m sure you’ll grow to love him, like I’ll grow to love Piero.”

  “I thought you said you did love him already.”

  “I do.” She looked suddenly pensive. “But he is so . . . so . . .”

  “What?”

  “Unwell. Barely twenty-five and he is already called ‘Piero the Gouty.’ ”

  “Surely the most important of his limbs does not have gout.”

  “Juliet!”

  I picked up a pair of scarlet shoes that matched the pomegranates on Lucrezia’s camicia, but when I moved to place them on her feet, she stayed my hand. “Juliet . . . ,” she repeated, this time her voice pleading.

  All the jesting had gone out of me. “My father told me, ‘Even if it breaks your heart, you will marry this man.’ ” I sniffed back emotion. “But that is the way we live, I suppose. At least it will make an end to my father’s nagging and my mother’s harping at me for grandchildren.”

  “You’re not going to say you don’t want children now.”

  “Of course I want children,” I said, “as long as they don’t kill me on the way out.”

  “Childbirth kill you? Never! You’re strong as Don Cosimo’s mule . . . and twice as stubborn. And here’s the best reason to marry. We’ll be matrons together—the queens of Florentine society.” She picked up the two feathered fans and handed me one. “We’ll rule with exquisite grace and style,” she said, playfully putting the hawk’s face before her own. “Raise large and beautiful families. Our feasts will be the most splendid, our patronage to hospitals and orphanages and artists legendary. We will have private rooms of our own. You will write your poetry.”

  I began to smile. “In secret,” I said, holding up my own mask. “I think Jacopo would forbid me writing.” I handed Lucrezia a small looking glass, and she regarded her feathered visage.

  “It’s good to have some secrets from your husband. And you will always have me to read your verses.”

  I was overcome with gratitude. Tears were threatening. “No one has ever had a better friend than I do.”

  We removed our masks and gazed at each other.

  “You’re wrong,” Lucrezia said. “I have.”

  “The red or the yellow?” I said quickly, not wishing for sentiment to overwhelm us on this night of celebration.

  Sniffing loudly, she said, “Let me see the high gold ones again. I’m thinking that Piero de’ Medici may need a wife who is his equal.”

  Chapter Three

  Iwas avoiding my parents, very easy to do in so large and loud a crush of celebrating people, with musicians playing. And I was masked, my feathered face a happy disguise. I caught glimpses of them—my mother, Mona Simonetta, short and plump as a partridge, and Papa, Capello Capelletti, a rangy beanstalk. To confer as they were now doing—looking this way and that, no doubt wondering at my whereabouts—Papa needed bending at the waist and Mama craning her neck to give him an ear.

  I sidestepped behind a marble pillar and leaned back, sighing. This night of Lucrezia and Piero’s betrothal, one that I wished to celebrate joyfully, was sure to be spent either cat-and-mousing with my parents, or trapped in a corner with Jacopo Strozzi, me pretending his conversation scintillating, his breath sweet, and his manner delightful. And several times this night I had noticed Allessandra Strozzi, dark complexioned and severe in countenance, peering with great intensity into the crowd, probably looking for me.

  Rein yourself in, I ordered myself. Jacopo had never
been unkind, and Mama said he often asked after my likes and dislikes. He plied me with compliments, though I always felt they would have been the same for any and every other girl in Florence he might be courting. He brought me small gifts—a silver crucifix, jade rosary beads, and a Book of Hours—all, I supposed, to remind me of the pious woman I was expected to be. Well, I told myself, I had best come to grips with my future husband. I must find a way to make the thought of sharing Jacopo’s home and bed and bearing his children somehow less revolting. Lucrezia was right. Nothing could be done to change it.

  “Cosimo and Contessina de’ Medici!” I heard announced as the music died. There was great shuffling of feet and rustling of fine fabric as everyone turned to the front of the ballroom. Guests pulled the masks from their faces in a respectful gesture and fell silent as the smiling Godfather of Florence, his wife on his arm, waved beneficently over the crowd.

  “Good friends!” he cried, and everyone crowed back at him—“Don Cosimo!” He laughed, delighted at the warmth and fellowship flowing forward and back. “What a day of glad tidings this is,” he continued. Now there was hardly a sound that could be heard. “Our son Piero has not only made a match in the beautiful Lucrezia Tornabuoni. He has met his match!”

  Everyone roared their approval, and I thought how overbrimming with pride my friend must be, honored so by so honorable a man.

  Lucrezia and Piero appeared then, he looking darkly handsome and quite elegant in a black velvet tunic piped in silver and, eschewing a dramatic turban, wearing instead a flat cap with a long, upward-curving white feather. Lucrezia, clutching his hand, eyes fastened on her betrothed, glowed with a look that proclaimed, “I am the luckiest girl in the world!”

  “May the joining of our two houses, and the heirs that spring fat and healthy from her womb, prove a blessing to Florence,” Cosimo intoned, “and all the citizens of the Republic!”

  The cheering at that was loud and raucous. I watched as Cosimo gently herded the now shy couple onto the floor that had cleared for them. Musicians struck the first chords of the pima, and Lucrezia and Piero took their poses. At the precise moment they swooped into motion, their gazes locked, and all could see that Cosimo’s words were not the empty praise and platitudes of any proud father. These two on the dance floor were something marvelous. Important. Radiating a glorious destiny. And we were the fortunate witnesses.