The Master of Verona

Pietro leaned forward, happily letting Jacopo's head fall in the process. "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's laugh was sour. "You know little about pride, boy. It's their pride that keeps me in exile."

Us, thought Pietro. Keeps us in exile.

There was a rustling beside him, and suddenly there was light as a groggy Jacopo pulled back one of the curtains. Pietro tried to feel ashamed at his satisfaction for having woken his brother up.

"The stars are out," said Jacopo, peering out of the window.

"Every night at this time," said their father. Pietro could now see the hooked nose over his father's bristly black beard. But 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. Partly.

The light that came into the cramped carraige wasn't from the sky but from the brands held aloft by their escort. No one traveled by night without armed men, and the lord of Verona had dispatched a large contingent to protect his latest honoured guest.

Verona. Pietro had never been, though his father had. "Giotto's O — you were thinking about Verona, weren't you, father?" Dante nodded, stroking his beard. "What's it like?" Beside Pietro, Jacopo turned away from the stars to listen.

Pietro saw his father smile, an unusual event that utterly transformed his face. Suddenly he was young and full of mischief. "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 Alboino 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 got in first, leaning forward eagerly. "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.

"He is at war though, yes?" insisted Jacopo.

Dante nodded. "With Padua, over the city of Vicenza. Before his untimely death, good Emperor Heinrich VII gave Cangrande the title of Vicar of the Trevisian Mark. Technically this means he is the overlord of Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso. The Trevisians and Paduans disagreed, naturally. But Vicenza is ruled by Cangrande's friend and brother-in-law, Bailardino Nogarola, who had no trouble swearing allegiance to his wife's brother."

"Then how is the war about Vicenza?" asked Pietro.

"Vicenza was controlled 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 bargain."

"What about the Trevisians, the Venetians?"

"The Trevisians are biding their time, hoping Padua wears down Cangrande's armies or wins outright. The Venetians? They're an odd lot. Protected in their lagoon, neither fish nor fowl, Guelph nor Ghibelline, they don't care much about their neighbour'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 Ferrara, I imagine the Venetians won't desire land anytime soon," he added, laughing.

"Maybe we'll see a battle!" Fourteen, Jacopo didn't care about politics. Ever since joining them in Lucca, he had treated his brother to a litany of dreams involving serving under some mercenary condottiero until he was proven so brave he'd be 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 existence, leading to the right kind of death. Women, wealth, maybe a heroic scar or two. And comfort! That was a dream he and his siblings 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 saved their house by using her dowry.