Jeanne Kalogridis - Painting Mona Lisa aka I, Mona Lisa

“Lisa! Come and meet our guest!”

Francesco emerged, wearing his typical benign smile, and took my arm. “Come,” he said, and drew me with him before I had time to protest.

A man sat at the middle of our long dining table; at the sight of me, he rose and bowed. He was a good head shorter than Francesco and twenty years younger. His short tunic, sharp goatee, and accent smacked of Rome. “Madonna Lisa, is it?”

“Sir,” I said, “you must forgive me. My son is very ill. I must go to him.”

Francesco’s little smile did not waver. “There is no hurry. Come sit with us.”

His placid expression was entirely out of place; I panicked. Had my child died, and was Francesco now going to attempt to soothe me? Was this stranger a physician, here to comfort me? “Where is Matteo?” I demanded.

“Safe,” he said, and that single, sharp word was double-edged.

He did not try to stop me as I fled up the stairs, stumbling over my skirts, frantic. When I threw the door to the nursery open, I saw the room was empty-neatly cleaned of Matteo’s things-and the nursemaid’s room was empty, as well. There were no linens on his little bed, in the crib.

I went back down the stairs, a madwoman. Francesco stopped me on the second level, on the landing in front of his chambers.

“Where is he?” I demanded, seething, trembling. “Where have you taken him?”

“We are all in the study,” he said calmly, and took my arm the instant before I reached for the knife.

I scanned the study: My baby was not there. Instead, our guest was sitting at the little round table in the center of the room, in front of the fireplace. Two men flanked him: Claudio and one of the soldiers who had guarded our palazzo immediately after Savonarola’s trial by fire.

The soldier held a knife to Zalumma’s throat.

“How can you do this?” I hissed at Francesco. “How can you do this to our son?”

He made a soft sound of disgust. “I have eyes. He is like his mother: of questionable heritage.” My cold Francesco.

He guided me to a chair across from our guest; I sank into it, my gaze fastened on Zalumma. Her face was stony, her stance unrepentant. I looked down. On the table in front of me was the letter to Giuliano, unfolded and open so that it could be easily read. Beside it rested a quill and inkpot, and a fresh piece of parchment.

Francesco stood beside me and rested his hand on my shoulder. “There is a problem with this letter. It needs to be rewritten.”

I balked. I looked at Zalumma’s eyes: They were unfathomable black mirrors. Our esteemed guest nodded faintly at the soldier, and he pressed the tip of the knife against her white throat until she gasped. A dark trickle escaped the flesh there and collected in the hollow at the base of her neck. She looked away; she did not want me to see her face and how frightened she was, to see that she knew she was going to die.

“Don’t,” I said. “I will write whatever you want.” I sized up the soldier, Claudio, and the goateed man, all on the other side of the table; I glanced at Francesco, standing beside me. If I reached for the stiletto hidden in my belt, I would be stopped before I ever got around the table, and Zalumma would be killed.

Francesco made a gracious gesture to the goateed man. “Ser Salvatore,” he said. “Please.”

Salvatore put his elbows on the table and leaned forward on them, toward me. “Copy the first two lines,” he said. “The letter must sound as if you wrote it.”

I dipped the quill in the pot, and scratched out the words:

My love, my love ,

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

“Very good,” Salvatore said, then dictated the next lines.

Your son and I are in mortal danger; we are captured by your enemies. If you and your brother Piero do not appear at Santa Maria del Fiore for High Mass on the twenty-fourth of May, they will kill us. Send troops, or anyone else in your place, and we will die .

Your loving wife,

Lisa di Antonio Gherardini

“Giocondo,” he had said, but I stubbornly would not add it.

Francesco folded the letter and handed it to Claudio, who pocketed it. “Now,” my supposed husband said, turning to me. “Let’s talk about your spying.”

“I didn’t mean to spy,” I said. “I was curious, and read just the one letter…”

“Curious. That’s not what Isabella says. She says that you leave a book on your night table as a signal, for her to tell a certain Giancarlo that you will be going to pray the next day.”

Salvatore’s tone was casual, almost friendly. “Who do you meet at Santissima Annunziata, Lisa?”

“Just Giancarlo,” I answered quickly. “I go to tell him what the letter says.”

“She’s lying.” Francesco’s tone was brutal; he had used it before, when he had uttered the word whore .

Salvatore was very, very still. “I think your husband is right, Madonna Lisa. And I think that he is right when he says that you are very fond of your slave. She was your mother’s, yes?”

I stared down at the table. “I go to meet a spy,” I said. “An older man, with gray hair. I don’t know his name. I found Giancarlo in your study one night, with the letter, and I was curious. I read it.”

“How long ago?” Salvatore asked.

“I don’t know-a year, perhaps two. He said he worked for the Medici. I decided to do what he told me-to go to Santissima Annunziata and tell the old man about the letters.”

Salvatore glanced back at the soldier who held Zalumma. Simply glanced, and lifted a finger.

I followed his gaze. The soldier’s knife made a quick, small movement beneath Zalumma’s jaw. Quick and small and simple; I heard the sound of fluid spilling. She would have fallen straight down, but he caught and lowered her. She went to the floor languid and graceful as a swan.

“Call a servant,” Salvatore told the soldier. “Get something to clean this up.”

I screamed and reared up; Francesco pushed me straight back down.

Salvatore faced me. “You are lying, Madonna Lisa. You know that the young man’s name is not Giancarlo; it is Gian Giacomo. And you know the old man’s name.”

I sobbed, hysterical, unable to stop, to speak. Zalumma was dead and I wanted to die.

Francesco had to speak very loudly to be heard over my weeping. “Come, now, Lisa, shall I send for little Matteo? We can bring him in here, as well. Or will you tell us the name of your old man?”

“Bring him,” I gasped. “Bring him, and show me he is alive. Because if he is not, you will have to kill me.”

Francesco let go the most irritated of sighs, but Salvatore nodded to him to leave the room. He returned moments later, followed by the frightened young nursemaid, stooping as she led Matteo in by the hand.

He laughed and wanted to come to me; he held out his arms for me. But when he saw Zalumma on the floor and his mother sobbing, he began to cry himself. I reached for him as Francesco lifted him up and handed him back to the nursemaid; my fingers grazed the dimpled back of his hand.

“All right,” Francesco clucked, and closed the door over them.

He and Salvatore turned to me. “The name, Lisa,” Francesco said.

I could not see Zalumma where she had fallen behind the table, but I sensed her body the way one might sense the warmth of a fire. I bowed my head and looked down at my hands, and said very softly, “Leonardo da Vinci.”

I did not look at Zalumma as they led me out; I did not want to remember her as I remembered my mother, dull-eyed and spattered with blood. Francesco and Salvatore were speaking as Claudio led me away; Salvatore’s tone was heated. “Now shall we have to amend the plan? If she has told this to others, to this Leonardo…”