The Road to Verona, the Same Night
“Giotto’s O.”
In the middle of a dream in which no one would let him sleep, it seemed to Pietro that the words were deliberately meant to annoy him. Almost unwillingly he dreamed of a rock, a paintbrush touching the rock, forming a perfect circle.
The painter used red. It looked like blood.
“Pietro, I’m speaking to you.”
Pietro sat up straight in the rattling coach. “Pardon, father.”
“It’s these blasted carriages. Too many comforts these days. Wouldn’t have fallen asleep in a saddle.”
It was dark with the curtains drawn, but Pietro easily imagined his father’s long face grimacing. Blinking, fighting the urge to yawn, Pietro said, “I wasn’t asleep. I was thinking. What were you saying?”
“I was referencing Giotto’s mythic O.”
“Oh. Why?”
“Why? What is nobler than thinking of perfection? More than that, it is a metaphor. We end where we begin.” A considering pause. Shifting, Pietro felt his brother’s head on his shoulder. Irritiation rippled through him. Oh, Poco’s allowed to sleep, but not me. Father needs an audience.
Expecting his father to try out a new flowery phrase, he was astonished to hear the old man say, “We end where we begin. Perhaps I will go home one day.”
Pietro leaned forward, letting Jacopo’s head fall. “Father – of course you will! Now that it’s published, now that any idiot can see, they’ll have to call you home. If nothing else, their pride won’t let anyone else claim you.”
The poet laughed sourly. “You know little about pride, boy. It’s their pride that keeps me in exile.”
Us, thought Pietro. Keeps us in exile.
Pietro felt a rustling beside him, and suddenly there was light. Jacopo was pulling back one of the curtains. Pietro tried to feel ashamed at his own satisfaction for having woken him up.
“The stars are out,” said Jacopo, peering out of the window.
“Every night at this time,” said Pietro’s father. Now Pietro could see the hooked nose over his father’s bristly black beard. The poet’s eyes were deeply sunken, as if hiding from illumination. It was partly this feature that had earned Dante Alaghieri his fiendish reputation.
The light that came into the cramped carraige wasn’t from the sky, but from the brands held aloft by their escort. No one travelled by night without armed men. The lord of Verona had dispatched a large contingent to protect his latest guest.
Verona. Pietro had never been, though his father had. He said, “Giotto’s O – you were thinking about Verona, weren’t you?” Dante nodded, stroking his beard. “What’s it like?” Beside him, Jacopo turned away from the stars to listen.
Pietro saw his father smile, an unusual event that utterly transformed his face. “Ah. The rising star of Italy. The city of forty-eight towers. Home of the Greyhound. My first refuge.” A pause, then the word refugio was repeated, savored, saved for future use. “Yes, I came there when I gave up on the rest of the exiles. Such plans. Such fools. I stayed in Verona for more than a year, you know. I saw the Palio run twice. Bartolomeo was Capitano then – a good man, honest, but almost terminally cheerful. In fact, it was fatal, now I think of it. When his brother Albiono took over the Captainship I made up my mind to leave. The boy was a weasel, not a hound. Besides, there was that unfortunate business with the Capelletti and Montecchi.”
Pietro wanted to ask what business, but Jacopo beat him, leaning forward eagerly to ask, “What about the new lord of Verona? What about the Greyhound?”
Dante just shook his head. “Words fail me.”
Which probably means, thought Pietro, he doesn’t really know. He’s heard the stories, but a man can change in a dozen years.
“But he is at war?” insisted Jacopo.
Dante nodded. “With Padua, over the city of Vicenza. Before he died, the Emperor gave Cangrande the title of Vicar of the Trevisian Mark, which technically means he is the overlord of Verona, Vicenza, Padua and Treviso. Of course, the Trevisians and Paduans disagreed. But Vicenza is ruled by Cangrande’s friend and brother-in-law, Bailardino da Nogarola, who had no trouble swearing alliegence to his wife’s brother.”
“So how is the war about Vicenza?” asked Pietro.
“Vicenza used to be controled by Padua until they threw off the yoke and joined Verona. Two years ago Padua decided it wanted Vicenza back.” Pietro’s father shook his head. “I wonder if they realize how badly they erred. They gave Cangrande an excuse for war, a just cause, and they might lose more than Vicenza in the bargin.”
“What about the Trevisians, the Venitians?”
“The Trevisians are biding their time, hoping Padua wears down Cangrande’s armies. The Venitians? Well, they’re an odd lot. Protected in their lagoon, neither fish nor fowl, Guelph nor Ghibbelline, they don’t care much about their neighbor’s politics unless it affects their trade. But if Cangrande wins his rights he’ll have their trade in a stranglehold. Then they’ll intervene. Though, after Ferarra, I imagine the Venitians won’t desire land any time soon,” he added, laughing.
“Maybe we’ll see a battle!” Jacopo was fifteen and didn’t care about politics. Ever since Poco had joined them in Lucca, Pietro had been treated to a litany of dreams involving membership in some mercenary condottiere until Poco was proven so brave he was knighted by whatever king or lord was handy. Then, Jacopo always said, came the money, leisure, comfort.
Pietro wanted to want such a life. It seemed like the right kind of existance, leading to the right kind of death. Women, wealth, maybe an heroic scar or two. And comfort? That was a dream he and his siblings had held in the way only a once-wealthy, now-ruined family can. Dante’s exile from Florence had beggared his children, and his wife had only kept their house by using her dowry.
But Pietro couldn’t imagine himself as a soldier. At seventeen he’d hardly been in a friendly scuffle, let alone a battle. He’d had a lesson in Paris, one quick tutorial which basically told him which end of the sword was for stabbing. The only other combat-moves he knew he’d copied from fightbooks.
As the second son he’d been intended for a monastic life. Books, prayers, and perhaps gardening. Some politics. Lots of money. That was the life Pietro was brought up for, and he’d never really questioned it. But two years ago, Pietro’s older brother Giovanni had died while with their father in Paris. Suddenly Pietro was elevated to heir and summoned to join his father. Since then they had traveled over the Alps back into Italy, down to Pisa and Lucca. A stone’s throw from Florence. No wonder his father was thinking about their home.
