Jeanne Kalogridis - Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa

I looked back at my father and could not keep the pain from my voice. “Why did he not come to me?”

“He did. He sent a man; Francesco killed him. He sent a letter; Francesco made me write one, saying you had died. I don’t think even then he believed it; Francesco said someone had gone to the Baptistery and found the marriage records.”

Salai. Leonardo. Perhaps Giuliano had heard of my marriage and had it confirmed; perhaps he had thought I wanted him to think me dead.

Imagine you are with Giuliano again , Leonardo had said. Imagine that you are introducing him to his child …

“You want the truth…” Antonio whispered. “There is one thing more. The reason I was so angry with your mother…”

His voice was fading; I leaned closer to hear.

“Look at your face, child. Your face. You will not see mine there. And I have looked at you a thousand times, and never seen Giuliano de’ Medici’s. There was another man…”

I dismissed the last statement as the product of delirium; I did not consider it long, for my father began to cough, a low burbling sound. Blood foamed on his lips.

Zalumma was already beside me. “Sit him up!”

I reached beneath his arm and lifted him up and forward; the movement caused a fountain of dark blood to spill from his mouth into his lap. Zalumma went to call for Loretta while I held my father’s shoulders with one arm and his head with the other. He gagged, and a second, brighter gush of blood followed; this seemed to relieve him, and he sat, breathing heavily. I wanted to ask him whose face he saw in mine, but I knew there was no time.

“I love you,” I said into his ear. “And I know you love me. God will forgive your sins.”

He heard. He groaned and tried to reach up to pat my hand, but he was not strong enough.

“I will leave soon with Matteo,” I whispered. “I will find a way to go to Giuliano, because Francesco has little use for me now. You mustn’t worry about us. We will be safe, and we will always love you.”

He shook his head, agitated. He tried to speak, and started, instead, to cough.

Loretta came in with towels, then, and we cleaned him as best we could, then let him lie down. He did not speak coherently again. His eyes had dulled, and he did not react to the sound of my voice. Soon after, he closed his eyes and seemed to sleep.

I sat with him through the afternoon. I sat with him at dusk, when evening fell. When Francesco came, his indignance over my escape from the palazzo constrained by false sympathy, I would not let him in my father’s room.

I stayed beside my father until the hour past midnight, when I realized he had not been breathing for some time. I called Loretta and Zalumma, and then I went downstairs, to the dining room, where Francesco sat drinking wine.

“Is he dead?” he asked, kindly.

I nodded. My eyes were dry.

“I shall pray for his soul. What did he die of, do you know?”

“Fever,” I said. “Brought on by an ailment of the bowels.”

Francesco studied my face carefully, and seemed satisfied by what he saw there. Perhaps I was not such a bad spy after all. “I am so sorry. Will you be staying with him?”

“Yes. Until after the funeral. I will need to speak to the servants, find them placement with us or a new family. And there will be other matters to deal with…”

“I need to return home. I am awaiting word on our guest’s arrival, and there are still many matters to take care of in regards to the Signoria.”

“Yes.” I knew that Savonarola had been arrested, thanks to Francesco’s timely defection to the Arrabbiati . At least I would no longer have to pretend that my husband and I were pious folk.

“Will I see you, then, at the funeral?”

“Of course. May God give us all strength.”

“Yes,” I said. I wanted strength. I would need it, to kill Francesco.

I stayed at my father’s house that night and slept in my mother’s bed. Zalumma went back to Francesco’s palazzo and fetched me personal items and a mourning gown and veil for the funeral. She also brought, at my request, the large emerald Francesco had given me the first night I had sullied myself with him, and the earrings of diamond and opal. Matteo remained at home, with the nursemaid; I did not have the heart to bring him to such an unhappy place.

I did not watch Loretta wash my father’s body as I waited for Zalumma to return. Instead, I went to his study, and found a sheet of writing parchment, and a quill, and ink.

Giuliano di Lorenzo de’ Medici

Rome

My love, my love ,

I was lied to, told you were dead. But my heart never changed toward you .

A warning: Salvatore de’ Pazzi and Francesco del Giocondo plan to draw you and Piero here to kill you. They are amassing an army in Florence. They want to repeat-this time, with success-Messer Iacopo de’ Pazzi’s plan, to rally the people in the Piazza della Signoria against the Medici .

You must not come .

I paused. After the passage of so much time, how could he be sure of my handwriting? What could I say so that he could be certain of the letter’s authenticity?

I only ask, as I did before: Give me a place, in some other city, and a time. Either way, I am coming to you soon. You dare not communicate it by regular correspondence-your letter would be confiscated and read, and I and our child, your son, endangered .

I have been separated from you because of a monstrous falsehood. Now that I know the truth, I cannot tolerate the distance between us an instant longer than I must .

Your loving wife,

Lisa di Antonio Gherardini

When Zalumma returned, I handed her the folded parchment. “I cannot send this as correspondence,” I said. “The Council of Eight would intercept it, and have my head. I will have to buy someone willing to hide the correspondence on his person and ride all the way to Rome with it, and see it personally delivered.” I showed her the emerald and the earrings, and handed them to her.

“You are the only one I can trust,” I told her. I had thought I could trust Leonardo; now, I could not speak his name without venom. He had knowingly kept from me the one truth that would have healed my heart.

Giuliano … dead. Few people have heard this. Most believe he is still alive .

Do you not love him still?

He had been reticent on our first meeting because he thought I had married another man while my first husband still lived. He had thought me capable of complete betrayal-because he was capable of it himself.

Zalumma took the jewels and nestled them carefully in the pocket hidden in the folds of her gown. “If it is at all possible,” she said, “I will see it done.”

We agreed that she would go early in the morning to search for a trustworthy courier. The lie: I was so grief-stricken that she had gone to the apothecary’s in search of something to soothe my nerves. It was so early, and I so desperate, that I did not want to wait for the stablehand to wake and ready the horses, and so I sent her off on foot.

I was terrified to send her off on such a dangerous hunt; one thing especially worried me. “I did not bring my knife,” I said; if I had, I would have given it to her.

Her smile was small but wicked. “I did.”

I did not mourn that night. I lay in my mother’s bed, with Zalumma at my feet in the cot that my father had never been able to bring himself to remove, and did not sleep. Now that Antonio was dead, Francesco had no more use for me-except as a lure, a role I would not play. The time had come to escape; my ultimate destination was Rome. I considered a dozen different ways to try to make it past the city gates-but none were safe or feasible when a restless two-year-old boy was involved.