The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [180]
They looked at one another. Gelis said, ‘You surprise me.’
Monna Alessandra rose. ‘You expect all elderly women to be captivated by his charm. No. He does not use those dimples with me. In return, I take him for what he is, as I take you. One has to live with one’s kind, whether one likes them or not.’
‘So I have found,’ Gelis said.
‘Yes. So I must go. You are unlikely to need me. Call on me if you do. The Bank brings me good business,’ said Monna Alessandra.
In Florence that year, the month of August proved unpleasantly hot. The wealthy had long since closed their houses and retired to their delicious villas in the campagna. Those who remained tied to town collected their households each evening and rode out to their farms, away from the heat, the smells and the gnats of the river Arno.
Gelis van Borselen, awaiting her husband, found it expedient to emerge a little from her lengthening retirement, and accepted invitations to the homes of distant relatives, and to households such as that of the Acciajuoli, where her husband was known.
Because of the fragile health of Messer Piero, she was entertained in the Via Largo by the lesser members of the Medici family, who several times mentioned how exhausted they had all been by dear Lorenzo’s little wedding. Three hundred barrels of vernaccia tapped, would one believe, and five thousand pounds of the wickedest sweetmeats – how could one lace up one’s gown? And the gifts! Although nothing, to be sure, compared to the nuptials of Duke Charles. What had the King of Naples sent to Duke Charles?
She was quite good at that particular game, and held her own. Because of it, perhaps, she found herself included, with other young matrons, in the parties which began to mark the opening of the cooler autumn season – a pretty water-festival, or a mock battle in the Piazza Santa Croce, or a dinner party, or a dance in the Piazza Santa Trinità.
As her circle widened, other small, idle pleasures became open to her. She could have become part of the carefree bands of young men and girls of her own age who strolled through the warm streets in the evening, the men with their lutes, the girls with ribbons and posies, escorted by their liveried torchbearers, taking laughter and music and mischief from one wrought-iron gateway to another.
Once, from her window, she saw a pair she did not know linger behind: the man well made and tall, with a laughing face and brown hair. Then the merriment faded, and he took the girl suddenly in his arms so that both faces were hidden and they stood together, without movement or sound, still as sculpture. It lasted only a moment; then they walked on, their hands tightly linked, while above, she sat helplessly weeping.
But that, of course, was exceptional. The mind was the weapon, the scourge; the senses obeyed it. The mind surveyed the sweet, the seductive dish in which the sharp business sense of Florence was embedded, and compared it with the Burgundian court which, although richer, had nothing of this kind to offer. Entertainment for the wellborn in Brussels was encased in Portuguese etiquette; set about with mechanical figures. Only the common people could be freely exuberant like this – at a skating-party; round a fire; under the coloured lanterns at carnival-time. And only in childhood had she been permitted to join them.
These were the only times, and they were few, when thought strayed and pain would seat itself, mocking, in the familiar place, and her resolution for a moment would falter. For the rest, she set to completing the small, private calls she still had to make. There were not so many. Time was passing, after all. After all, it was September.
She spent an evening with a man called Prosper Schiaffino de Camulio de’ Medici, who was Genoese and discontented. Leaving, she