Marina Fiorato - The Madonna of the Almonds

Simonetta di Saronno sat at her solar window, the high square frame turning her to an angel of the rererdos. The citizens of Saronno oft remarked on it; every day she was there, staring down at the road with eyes of glass.

The Villa Castello, that square and elegant house, sat in solitary majesty a little way from the town as the saying went: una passeggiata lunga, ma una cavalcata corta, a long walk, but a short ride. It was set where the land of the Lombard plain began to climb to the mountains; just enough elevation to give the house a superior aspect over the little town, and for the townsfolk to see the house from the square. With plaster that had the sun-blush of a lobster, white elegant porticos and fine large windows, the house was much admired, and might have been the object of envy; but for the fact that the tall gates were always open to comers. The tradesmen and petitioners that trod the long winding path to the door through the lush gardens and parks could always be sure of a hearing from the servants a sign, all agreed, of a generous lord and lady. In fact the villa symbolised the di Saronnos themselves; near enough to town and their feudal obligations, but far enough away to be apart.

Simonettas casement could be seen from the road to Como, where the dirt track wound to the snow-rimed mountains and looking-glass lakes. The victuallers and merchants, the pedlars and water-carriers all saw the lady at her window, day after day, as they went about their business. Before this time they might have made a jest about it, but there was little to laugh at in these times. Too many of their men had gone to the wars and not returned. Wars that seemed little to do with this their state of Lombardy, but of greater concerns and high men with low motives the pope, the French king, and the greedy emperor. Their own little prosperous saffron town of Saronno, set between the civic glories of Milan and the silver splendour of the mountains, had been bruised and battered by the conflict. Soldiers boots had scraped the soft pavings of the piazza. Steel stirrups had knocked chunks from the warm stones of the houses corners as the cavalry of France and the Empire passed through in a whirlwind of misplaced righteousness. So the good burghers of Saronno knew what Simonetta waited for; and for all that she was a great lady, they pitied her for the human feelings that she shared with all the mothers, wives and daughters of the town. They all noted that, even when the day came that she had dreaded, she still sat at the window, day and night, hoping that he would come home.

Villa Castellos widow, for such she now was, was much talked of in the town square. The old, gold stones of Saronno, with its star of streets radiating out from the piazza of the Sanctuary church, heard all that its citizens had to say. They talked of the day when Gregorio di Puglia, Lord Lorenzos squire, had staggered, bloody and beaten, up the road to the villa. The almond trees which lined the path swayed as he passed, their silver leaves whispering that they knew of the heavy news that he carried.

The lady had left her window at last, just once, and appeared again at the doorway on the loggia. Her eyes strained, willing the figure to be the lord and not the squire. When she perceived the gait and build of Gregorio, the tears began to slide from her eyes, and when he came closer and she saw the sword that he carried, she sank lifeless to the ground. All had been seen by Luca son of Luca, the under-gardener at the villa, and the boy had enjoyed a couple of days of celebrity in the town as the sole witness of the scene. He spoke, as if a wandering preacher, to a little knot of townsfolk that gathered under the shadow of the church campanile to shelter from the fierce sun and hear the gossip. The crowd shifted with the shadow, and it was fully an hour before the interest and speculation had ceased. They talked for so long of Simonetta that even the churchs priest, a kindly soul, felt moved to open the doors and shake his head at Luca from the cool dark. The under-gardener hurried to the end of his tale as the doors closed again for he did not wish to leave out the most fascinating and mysterious aspect of the tragedy: the squire had brought something else with him from the battlefield too. Long and metal; no, not a swordLuca did not know exactly what it was. He did know that lady and squire had spent a couple of hours in close and grave counsel together once she had recovered her conscious state; then the lady had appeared once again in the window, there to stay, it seemed, until Judgement Day. A day, all prayed, which would unite her again with her lord.