Chapter 13 - Mistress of Rogues by Rosamond Marshall

1954 Genre: Historical Fiction / Racy Romance

WEAPONS OF LOVE

In flight from her brutal husband, blonde Bianca fell into the hands of the puppeteer, Belcaro. She soon learned he wanted her as bait, to snare the most profligate princes of the Renaissance.

In exchange for power, Belcaro passed her from rogue to rogue. Until the night he found he could not resist the ravishing courtesan he had created.

But by that time Bianca knew him for the monster he was. And she was ready and waiting—with all the weapons of her amorous career!

"Miss Marshall's novel concerns the downfall of a lady ... whose golden hair and other charms were reminiscent of Botticelli's Venus... Bianca had a good many men in her life." —NEW YORK TIMES

You can download the whole story for FREE from the Fox Library. This is a limited-time offer!

CHAPTER 13 

The sun shone down upon a peasant girl who rode a slick and nimble mule through silvery olive groves and emerald vineyards. She wore a gown of gray with a band of blue around the hem. An apron and pouch hung from the waistline. A sleeveless bodice revealed the white linen sleeves of her shift. She was shod with patterns and on her head she wore a starched cloth folded in such wise that her hair was covered and her face shaded. 

She had in her pouch the most needful baggage of the traveler—gold. Under her apron, a dagger in a leathern sheath. Behind her saddle, a blanket and food. 

This peasant girl kept to the byways and never stopped at the inns. She slept the night in a haystack and rode on at the break of day. 

I prayed only to find Andrea and if he were in Siena coax him out of the pest-ridden city. “My castle and lands of Maldonato are thine until the end of thy days," I'd say. “Use if for thy works ... yes ... e'en for Fra Giacomo's works, but save thyself from the pestilence.”

My search for happiness was ended, but Andrea must be protected! 

When gamesters rise from their dice and go their separate ways, he who hath lost remains in sadness fixed, revolving in his mind what luckless throws he cast. So I, probing my mistakes and counting my losses groaned, “Death! Come not nigh to my love!" 

Traveling fast, I covered the distance from Florence to Siena in four days. The third evening I began to see refugees fleeing from the pest-stricken city. A sad-eyed mob who seemed to have abandoned all hope. 

I spoke to a wine merchant. “They are dying like flies in Siena, my girl. Turn back. Turn back!" 

A weeping woman told me she had lost seven members of her family in as many days. A father bemoaned the loss of his sixteen-year-old son. A mother her babe in arms. 

Nearing Siena, I saw the first plague victim. He had fallen by the wayside and lay there abandoned and with out a grave. I forged on through the miserable throng, mindless of any other idea than to find Andrea. 

It was sundown when I saw the umbra towers against a blood-red sky. A stream of people was still pouring out of the gates. I saw children abandoned, weeping, hungry. I saw old folk left against a wall to die. I saw cadavers everywhere, and some soldiers with lance and arquebus ready to kill plunderers. 

Over this scene of desolation hung a pall of smoke from funeral burnings and the bells tolled without ceasing. I whipped two rough youths away from my stirrup. They wanted my mule. A man went crying, “Death. Death,” in a lugubrious voice that sent icy chills down my spine. 

I spurred through the city to Andrea's bottega. The door of the cobbler's shop was open. I called, "Ser de Sanctis. Ser de Sanctis." I rode around to the court, left the patient mule to drink at the water trough and knocked at the closed door of Andrea's bottega. My knock was unanswered. In panic I beat on the wood crying, "Andrea! Andrea!" 

A lean, dark face looked down from the galleria. It was Fra Giacomo. At first he did not recognize me in my peasant dress. Then he called in his sonorous voice that used to shake the naves of cathedrals, “Donna Bianca! Come! Here!” 

I ran up the stairs. “Andrea?” 

The friar nodded to the door of a room opening off the galleria. 

"Is he ... ill?” 

Fra Giacomo again nodded. Then I saw that he was fairly staggering for need of sleep. He could hardly keep his eyelids open. “We've been working night and day until... Andrea was stricken. If thou canst care for him, I'll return to my duties. There are sick and dying by the hundreds who need the last sacrament.” 

He stood aside to let me enter the darkened room. There on a straw bed lay Andrea—a ghost of himself. I held back a moan. "Fra Giacomo, how long has it been?” 

"Two days. He cannot last much longer."

When the friar left me, I clenched my fists not to burst into tears. 

Andrea's breathing was hurried and his face was dusky in hue. The friar had filled two jars with clear water from which he had dipped to cool the patent's brow. I found lemon juice in a glass, a wooden spoon beside it. 

All through the night I kept the linens cool and spooned lemon juice through my love's blackening lips. But at dawn I began to sense that my efforts were for nought. Andrea would pass ere long. His breathing was so fast that there was no time between one breath and the other. His body was shaken with terrible tremors. His emaciated fingers clawed the sheet as if to cling to the last ledge of life. When the sun's morning ray smote through the shutter, his eyes opened. 

"It is thy Bianca," I whispered. “Take courage, my love. Fight! Fight!” 

His eyelids quivered. I heard him murmur in delirium. “Art thou the golden angel?” 

"Yes! Yes!" I whispered. "I come to give thee the Book. That single copy ... remember? I have it safe. It is thine. Take courage! Live! Live!” 

"My work is done. Let thine begin. Spread the message..." A shudder passed through his emaciated frame. "Please God!” he murmured and died.

I threw myself on the silent breast and kissed the blackened lips. “Death! Take Bianca too!" 

How long I lay there with my head on Andrea's stiffening arm, I do not know. A stench of smoke brought me to my senses. The day was spent. The sky had darkened and flames were leaping up the walls. I ran out on the galleria. The whole street was aflame. I saw a hooded figure with a torch. "Come down!” he called. "We're burning this street!” 

Andrea! I turned and would have gone back into the room but flames stopped me at the threshold. I ran down the steps. The man with the torch had loosed my mule. The animal bolted in wild fear. 

"Leave this street!” shouted the torch-bearer. 

I was sucked into a mob that sang wild songs, foul songs. "Come, girl!” called a lout, barring my way. “Come dance..." Bodies were entwined like snakes. A sea of bodies. “Live! Live! For tomorrow we die! Die! Die!” A stench rose up from the gutters and smoke swirled around and curses echoed from the walls. I stopped at the approach of a jigging chain of men and women. Stretching my arms wide, I screamed as loud as they. “Come! Come!” The lover I sought was skull and bones. His name was Death! 

Engulfed in the serpent dance, I was carried through blazing streets. Ruffians fought over me like dogs. I slipped and staggered through pools of filth until I was seized by another pair of arms, other lips, other embraces. And all through the dreadful night I heard the bells toll the death knell. Which note was for Andrea? Which one for me? 

"Come here, girl!"

“No! To me!” 

"First thou ... now this other one." Which pestilent kiss will destroy me? 'Twas another day and I led another dance of death. The mob joined in. When we came to a tavern we stopped. Crack the casks! Empty the barrels! Swill down the flowing wine! 

In a city gone mad, I was the maddest! The soldiery were out to kill such as I. Draw their fire, Bianta! I ripped open my bodice and bared my bosom. "Kill me! Kill me!" 

They would not. 

“Why?" I screamed to the man whose arm was around my waist, whose foul breath was on my cheek, “Why will no one strike me down?” 

“They are afraid,” he cackled. “Thy hair ... it is the hair of an angel!” 

"I... angel? Give me a knife!” I gathered my hair in a rope, hacked it short to the neck and flung the cut strands in the soldier's face. “Now ... kill me!" 

He would not. Weeping, ranting, screaming, I ran through the streets. 

Ran in search of death. And at last, I fell, and the daylight faded. 

A small, persistent voice pierced the mists that swirled around me. “Mamma ... Mamma..." A tiny hand touched mine. "Mamma!" Two soft palms patted my cheeks. "Mamma! Wake up!” 

I opened my eyes and uncovered my face. Beside me knelt a child of two or three years—poor waif! When it saw me, it burst into tears. “Thou art not my mamma! Where is my mamma?” 

I rose to my knees. I was on a flight of steps leading up to the porch of a church! I cradled the babe in my arms. "Hush! Hush! We'll go find Mamma." I started to climb the steps. 

"Please, dear Madonna ... Help me find my mother." I shuddered. "Come, child!" 

He placed his small, dirty hand in mine. “Is my mother in church? Shall we go in and find her?” 

Enter the Lord's temple? Not the likes of Bianca! On the threshold of the holy place I murmured a prayer. "Help me, God, who hast my Andrea in thy keeping." 

The infant cradled in one arm, leading the boy with the other, I walked down the steps and through a narrow street. Some of the houses that lined it on either side had been damaged by fire. Others were intact. 

“Is there anybody here?” I called, breaking the eerie silence. Twice and thrice I repeated the cry, then a hoarse voice spoke through a grating. "Who calls?” 

I answered at random, "I found two children crying for their mothers. There must be hundreds, thousands of little ones roaming the city alone and afraid. Will you take them in?" 

A coarse, painted face showed in the crack of the open door. “Who art thou? I never saw thee before.” 

The woman was a harlot—no worse than I. I put the babe in her arms and shoved the boy into her skirts. "Take these two. I am going out to search for others.” 

A woman with sad eyes looked over her sister harlot's shoulder. "Why not? Our patrons have taken to their heels! We'll keep the little monkeys until their kin can claim 'em.” 

I did not undertake the search alone. Women trickled out of every brothel and followed me until we were twelve in all. Twelve lost women, hoping to find children that were lost. 

We found a half dozen and then a dozen. They were of all ages. Some were so frightened that they could not speak. All were hungry, thirsty, dirty—and many were sick. 

A mighty hand seemed to guide me. We came to a deserted palace as yet undefiled by looters. The door was ajar. "Bring the children in," said I. “Some of you go out and search for more. The others, stay with me." 

We made beds on the marble floors, borrowed linen from the cupboards, straw from the stables and food from the larders. We made a fire and bathed the little ones and put them to bed. We'd hardly finished with the first batch than the women brought in another. 

The lower floor of the palace become a lazaret. In high, frescoed salons where nobles paraded their silks and jewels, a hundred healthy little ones played, ate and slept. The women were tireless in their efforts. Soon we were caring for five hundred small orphans of the plague and a hundred more were sick and dying. 

"Bring a priest," I bade my helpers. The one they found—Fra Giacomo! 

He was near the breaking point when they carried him up the marble staircase. I set food and wine before him. He did not even recognize me in my outlandish gear hair cut short! Bare of foot and shoulder. A rag to clothe me. When he had taken a few sups of the broth his head fell on his arms. "Let him rest," I whispered. 

The next morning a distraught mother came seeking her lost child. She found the babe—the same one who had wakened me from my stupor calling, "Mamma! Mamma!” 

The mother turned to me with a joyous cry. "Saved! My son is saved!” A woman of means, she offered me a purse of gold. 

"We need food for the children more than gold," I pleaded. 

"I will send food from my farms,” she promised. Her modest gaze traveled from one ragged creature to another. "I know not what you women were, nor do I care, but it is not seemly to go through the streets in such garb. I will send garments befitting your works of charity.” 

The grateful mother sent food in generous amounts, also robes of white wool with white head cloths and stout leathern sandals. 

We—the ragged twelve—put on our new, pious garb with praise and thanksgiving. 

"Let me be Sister Martha," said she who had been known in the brothel as “La Grassa." 

"My name, now and forever, is Sister Speranza," said another known as “La Bassetta.” Teresa, Veronica, Beata, Agata, Tommasa, Ursula went to the font to be baptized by Fra Giacomo whose strength was somewhat restored. 

"What shall I name thee?” he said when it came my turn to receive baptism. 

"Carita," I answered. 

Seeing me with a clean face and orderly apparel he recognized me. “Donna Bianca!" 

"Donna Bianca no more," I murmured. 

His sorrowful eye moistened. “Andrea ... dead! All our travail ... our blood ... our tortures for nought! Our printing press burned! The last copy of the work, even the manuscript which thou didst restore to me, consumed by the flames! O Bianca, what is God's will? What is God's will?" 

Why did I not comfort his despair with the words "All is not lost. One copy of the Book remains in my safekeeping.” Was it fear that he would fix me with his fanatic's eye and say, "Give me the Book that my work may begin anew”? I held my peace. 

The monk was a tower of strength for us poor women. Restored to that rugged health which had carried him through so many trials, he ministered to our spiritual needs. And those needs were many and deep. 

Years of profligate living had almost wiped out the habit of true worship. My credo was a mockery. Obedience to the form, not the letter of religion. The women—slaves of the brothels since puberty—knew not the meaning of prayer. We had so much to learn. 

I was surprised to find that Fra Giacomo was no longer the firebrand who used to strike terror to the hearts of his congregation. A new spirit of humility seemed to have won over his righteous ire. 

"I would give my remaining days on earth to bring Andrea back to life," he said sadly. “Such was his artist's gift; I believe he could have undertaken the work of cutting new blocks for the Book ... from memory. There were evenings when he would recite whole chapters of the New Testament without consulting the page. With out his help, I am like a babe who must learn to talk. I must take the Book in the Latin and the Greek, translate it laboriously. Will my lifetime be enough? It cost Count Cesare di Montaldi, father of Count Ippolito thy husband..." 

"He was not my husband!” said I, and the almost forgotten words, “I wish to confess,” burst from my lips. Fra Giacomo consenting, I unrolled the long, long record of my sins. Sometimes, raising tearful eyes I glanced at the monk. His lips moved in prayer. Did he hear my recital of evil? "Is there forgiveness for such as I, father?" 

"To repent is to take the first step toward healing and grace," he murmured. Then he spoke gentle words. "Our sins last so long as we go on sinning, but if our hearts are sincerely moved, our will is strengthened by divine power. Go, daughter, and sin no more.” 

Why, when I had confessed my sins, did I not tell the good friar the truth about the Book? 

Our war against the plague claimed my every thought and power. Death seemed to triumph. We twelve women were almost overwhelmed by our sad duties. 

Seeing our great need, Fra Giacomo mustered two male helpers to our aid, a poor carpenter named Beppo and an aged brother of his own order of Mendicants who was known as Fra Angelo. 

Beppo carpentered the rough coffins in which we laid the children. Sometimes for lack of wood we buried them by twos and threes. When there was no more wood, we wound them in sacking and laid them in the clean, cool earth. 

The spectacle of two white-robed women and a feeble Mendicant monk dragging a cart heaped with the dead was an everyday thing. 

I was called to face another test of my courage. Fra Giacomo announced that he must part from us. 

“Padre! We need thee!" 

“And I need to serve, Sister Carita. But I am called to a higher calling." 

"What higher calling than the salvage of souls and aiding helpless children?" 

He seemed loath to tell me his reasons. "Sister Carita ..I would not open ancient wounds.. 

"I have but one wound, father. Andrea's loss." “My departure is linked with Andrea de Sanctis.” "With Andrea?" 

The monk leaned to my ear. "A person of trust has told me that a copy of the Book may have been saved from burning by a pious woman. She was seen to snatch something from the pyre the day they burned the books. I must go to Florence and seek this woman." 

"Go to Florence when there's a price on thy head?” 

“When the hew and cry has died down, I have a way of approaching Lorenzo,” said Fra Giacomo. "He is a man of open mind. A learned man and a scholar, as witness his care in collecting and preserving the works of secular masters as well as the sacred codici and incunabulae. If, having recovered a copy of the Book I could place it in his hands for safekeeping, the time might come when all obstacles to its printing might be removed. For by God's will, it is only a matter of time.” 

I saw the old, fanatic gleam in Fra Giacomo's eye. The Book and the spreading of the word of God were his destiny. Was it any wonder that he had been able to impart his fervor to Andrea and others? I, myself, was moved. Yet I did not speak the words that might have brightened his hope. "I was that pious woman, although no book was saved that day." A more selfish reserve forbade me to tell that I was the zealous guardian of the Book Andrea de Sanctis had sent me as a gift. 

Fra Giacomo packed a knapsack. He was to leave at dawn on foot. But he never rose from his cot. 

"Send this carcass to the lazaret!” he pleaded when Fra Angelo called me to his side. "I've caught the plague. Risk not infection among our children." 

I had him taken to a room apart. There I nursed him for three days. Then—seeing that his spirit was about to pass away, I knelt at his side. "Fra Giacomo... I have a copy of the Book ... one that Andrea de Sanctis sent me. It is safe! Safe! No one shall take it from me." 

His dull eye lighted. His swollen lips parted. “Praise God!” he sighed—and drew his last breath. 

The friar's passing severed the last earthly tie that bound me to my beloved Andrea. Thy will be done. In deeper thought than I had ever practiced, I explored the need of humans for that love divine which never faileth. 

Our little band accompanied the friar martyr to Campo Santo and Fra Angelo performed the last rites over his grave. When we returned to our labors, it seemed to us all that Fra Giacomo's death marked the peak of the pestilence. Death! Death everywhere! 

An oasis in the plague-ridden city, our palace stronghold stood. Our children were saved. A rumor started. "There is a saint in Palazzo Nenni." "Saint Carita, protect our children," prayed mothers at our door. They laid their babes on the stones. “Touch them, Saint Carita, and they will live." 

I tried to speak words of reason. "I cannot heal. I am not a saint. Our children live because we keep them clean and feed them and pray and trust in God."

"Saint Carita. Saint Carita," they cried in the night, their faces white and drawn in the light of votive tapers. 

Mornings, Sisters Beata and Veronica would find gifts of food and flowers at our door. There was gold and silver too. The words "Bless Saint Carita” were chalked on the steps. 

I trembled. "Fra Angelo, they do commit the sin of idolatry. I am no saint to be worshiped." 

"If they take courage from thee, let them,” said the sad old monk. 

The crowds grew and grew. Men and women knelt as at a shrine. "Saint Carita. Saint Carita. Come out. Bless us." 

I spoke to the poor frightened souls with love and pity. “Go to your houses. Pray. Take up the business of life. Live better, cleaner, purer, simpler lives. Think more of Him who saves ... less of mortal fears. Have faith. Love. Pray." 

At last, as all tides do, the death tide ebbed. The Reaper relented. The peasantry returned to their vines and the burghers to their homes and shops. The streets were cleansed. The churches reopened. Charred ruins were raked under. The Pit was covered. 

But we twelve had three hundred and ninety-nine homeless children. No parents. No kin. Their ages ranged from the cradle to six or seven years. 

And now that the stream of life was rolling on, the owner of “our” palazzo returned to Siena. He was the powerful Count Nenni and he claimed his property, be rating us for making his house into a pest hole." 

What shall become of my children? I prayed. And the command came from on high. "Take thy children to thy palace in Florence."

To Florence? How would I get them there? 

Then as if heaven-sent, a troop of mercenaries in the service of Lorenzo rode through the city on their way to the Tuscan capitol. I pleaded with their captain. "Let each soldier take one child in the saddle.” 

The sisters, Fra Angelo, Beppo and I divided our provender into small bundles a part for each child. We would follow on foot. 

It was a merry cavalcade. The soldiers seemed to enjoy their little charges. Evenings they would feed them, wash their hands and feet in the running streams and bed them lovingly. They called us the White Sisters and treated us with reverence and respect. 

People flocked to see us pass. The word preceded us, “Sister Carita comes. She who performed miracles is here!” 

A farmer pressed his donkey on me. “The Sister is weary. Ride the rest of the way.” Soon each of us had a donkey and we could keep pace with the cavalrymen. 

I never doubted that I was doing right in returning to Florence. Had I not heard the command? My heart was filled with joy when I saw the hills of Fiesole. 

Another thousand years had passed since I sojourned there. I had cast out even the memory of the days and nights in Villa Caffaggiolo. 

Our band entered Florence at sunset and made its way to Palazzo Belcaro. 

It was strange to see the children kiss the bearded cheeks of “their” soldier. 

"Addio, Pietro! Addio, Francesco!” 

Three hundred laughing, chattering children marched into the great court. We twelve and Fra Angelo dismounted from our donkeys. 

My porter did not know me until I said, “I am thy mistress. Open. Let us in.” 

His jaws sawed up and down. His eyes bulged with astonishment. “Thou ... the Lady Bianca?" He fumbled with his keys, and finally got the doors open. 

I was shepherding our children up the great marble staircase when a familiar dwarfed figure appeared. 

"Nello!” 

The little man backed before the tide of children, then he ran like a maddened hare, leaped into the arms of a statue of Apollo, and clung there screaming, “Take 'em away! Take those children away!” 

I bade the sisters accompany the children to the ballroom and then called Nello down from his perch. "Nello, dost thou not know me? I was Bianca. Now I am Sister Carita." 

He swung to the floor and approached me almost fearfully. “Thou ... Bianca? No! Bianca had golden hair ... to here!” he pointed to his knobby knees. “She was pink and clean all over. Thy bare feet are dirty," 

"I am Bianca, Nello." 

He backed away. "No! No! Thou art not ... thou canst never be Bianca. Go! Take thy screaming devils with thee! Go!”. 

At this juncture, my steward Belotti arrived on the scene. A man of calm manner, he seemed greatly perturbed. “My lady!” 

“Call me Sister Carita, Belotti." 

“We thought ... it was bruited about ... my lady had been taken of the Black Death." 

"I am very much alive, Belotti, and I need thy help.” 

Nello made an angry gesture, thumb to his nose. "Thou art not Bianca! Thou art not Bianca!” He fled. I turned to the steward. “From now on, I shall devote my life to good works. I plan to make this palace into an asylum for orphan children.” 

"This palace, an asylum? Has my lady informed herself of the rules that govern hospitals?” 

"Rules?” 

"One cannot set up a house for the indigent and sick on the spur of an impulse, my lady. All the less because these ... er ... unfortunate waifs come from a city that has been in the grip of the plague.” 

I felt my hopes threatened. “Good Belotti, what shall I do with my children? These women? The padre who gives us spiritual consolation?” 

"If my lady wishes to house them in the ... north wing?" 

"Is not the north wing where the servants lodge?” 

“Yes, my lady. The servants can be accommodated elsewhere." 

I yielded to his persuasion. "The north wing until such time as we can clear the salons of statuary, pictures, hangings.” 

“Yes, my lady." Belotti seemed in haste to go. 

“Wait," said I. "Please buy food for the children in large amounts. Make way for storage in our cellars." 

"My lady? The money to buy large amounts of food?”

"Money?” 

"In years past, my lady has spent a fortune. Hundreds of thousands." 

I stared at him in amazement. "I... I was rich! My defunct husband was a Croesus.” 

“Yes, my lady.” "What has become of our wealth? Jewels?” 

"There are still my lady's jewels," said Belotti. "Of course some, not paid for, were repossessed by the jewelers.” 

"My art collections are worth a ransom! Hurry, Belotti! Sell them.” 

"In all good time, my lady. But should the art dealers learn of my lady's difficulty, they would knock the price down. I must make haste... slowly.” 

"My lands and houses, Belotti!” said I, brightening. 

"Ah!” Belotti murmured. “There we have resources to be sure.” 

"Sell them!” 

“Yes, my lady. I'll set about it at once. And if my lady will be kind enough to sign a power of attorney." 

“What is a power of attorney?"

“A letter entitling me to act for my lady."

"Bring it! I will sign." 

I asked news of Fornieri, Matteo, Clown Gianetto and Maria. 

“A grant in Belcaro's will made them independent, my lady. They have gone their separate ways.” 

Please let us know in the comments if you like this story. If there is enough interest, we will publish more of this story.