The Miracles of Prato by Laurie Albanese

Francesco had to stay on the painter’s heels.

Chapter Five
    Monday of the Tenth Week After Pentecost, the Year of Our Lord 1456
    Fra Filippo Lippi sat beneath the window in his bottega and studied the nearly finished Madonna and Child for Ottavio de’ Valenti. The likeness was breathtaking. He knew he should disguise the resemblance to Sister Lucrezia, but the Virgin’s expression was flawless, her features exquisite. Even her high brow, as suited a woman of great intelligence, couldn’t be altered, for this would change the face that illuminated all the Virgin knew, and all she understood. He needed only some madder for the Virgin’s lips and the jewels on her crown, perhaps the smallest bit of lapis lazuli to enhance the blue of her eyes. In all else, this Madonna was perfect.
    Hanging his worn leather pouch from his corded belt, Fra Filippo set out for the convent. Heading toward Via Santa Margherita, he passed an old prostitute who lived with her twisted arm in a sling, shunned now by all but the meanest men. As the friar said a silent prayer for the aged peddler of sin, he wondered at the fates that led some women to God, and others to Satan.
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    I ’ve seen this in my father’s garden,” Lucrezia said to Sister Pureza, holding soft dill needles in the flat of her hand. “And this,” she said, fingering the sharp rosemary spikes. “This I know from Beatrice’s bread.”
    Lucrezia held a sprig of rosemary to her nose. The air was filled with the scent of crushed herbs. The heat had broken, and it was very soothing to be in the garden.
    â€œRosemary is used in the infirmary as well as in the kitchen.” Sister Pureza bent slowly and snapped a sprig from the healthy bush. “It clears the head of all weakness and aches, and may be rubbed vigorously on the hands and feet to chase away pain. But married women must always take care, for too much of it can rid the womb of its blessed contents.”
    As the old woman examined the herb bush, Lucrezia studied her with quiet envy. In her time at the convent, Lucrezia’s bleeding had not come as expected, and she wondered, not for the first time, if the Virgin in her wisdom had chosen to spare her from the monthly curse so that she might sooner become a placid older woman, like Sister Pureza.
    Except during prayer and mealtime, or when someone needed her attention in the infirmary, Sister Pureza could always be found in the herb garden, tending the plants that served the body, the spirit, and the mind. Always, as now, she appeared to be fully absorbed in her task.
    â€œMany herbs have more than one use,” Sister Pureza said. “It’s our duty to find the purpose God intends for each plant, in each instance, and then serve His will.”
    The garden was nearing the full bloom of late summer. The quince trees were heavy with young fruit, and the lavender spikes were just breaking into purple blossom. The stone birdbath was filled with small sparrows, sunflowers poked merry faces over the garden wall, and colorful hummingbirds hovered in the air collecting the last of the hollyhock nectar. There was a city of more than four thousand souls beyond the convent gates, but here they enjoyed the quiet solitude of a country garden, and the fragrant air took Lucrezia backto the carefree summers she’d spent at the family’s small farmhouse above the hills of Lucca. Her life then had been filled with simple joys: planting pole beans and red peppers, packing fresh fruit preserves in terra-cotta jars, and climbing in the small vigneto with its clusters of deep purple grapes.
    â€œBuckthorn is used primarily by the artisans, to obtain a deep green,” Sister Pureza said as she showed Lucrezia how to take each branch gently in hand and find the place where it was nubbed. She trimmed carefully, shaping the unruly bush into a plump mound. Then she gave Lucrezia another set of iron shears, and the two worked