Brother #1:
He loves her. That much is clear. And she loves him. That much is known.
The filthy ratbag and my sister. The simpleton we hired to write to our clients, to transcribe our musings, to count our money. The ungrateful pig. The leech. After all that we’ve done for him? After we give him a room in our home? A plate to eat from? Work to support himself and his brothers?
No. It’s not enough for the Janus Lorenzo. Look at him, sitting next to her, his face flush with love. Making her laugh. Pouring her wine. The way he looks at her. It makes me sick. Mortifyingly, she’s playing along, jingling bells in her giggles. The horny fool. The bitch. She deserves to pay for being so stupid. So easy.
Does she not understand how we have laboured over securing her future? Her marriage? That pompous high noble. The red-faced tyrant. Thank God for his olive trees, succulent as they are, by far the best in all of Tuscany. What did we do to deserve such an ungrateful sister?
I can see my brother staring at them too, gnawing his nails down to the knuckle. He catches my gaze and shoots me a look. It’s time. No, it’s past time. This has gone too far. This has been a long-time coming, Lorenzo. Tomorrow you will pay for your unabashed lust, for your pungent disloyalty, for your sinister charms.
Say goodbye to Isabella, scum.
Lorenzo:
I love her. She is my whole world. She’ll never know how much it soothes me to merely sit by her, to feel her warmth radiating from her and attaching itself to the weak strings of my heart. She glows with goodness. She is heaven incarnate.
The only time I can breathe is when I am with her. When I can inhale as she exhales and swirl her sparkling breath inside my own lungs, and know that as I expel her milky scent that a small part of her will remain creeping around my capillaries, dancing through my blood, as her laugh twirls behind my eyes.
I love her.
I don’t find anything beautiful anymore. The whole world is grey now, except for her. She radiates all the light left in Florence, perhaps in the world. What I wouldn’t give to kiss her and taste her whole life on her sweet lips.
My love for her is not a feeling nor an action. It is my whole existence. My whole being. I spend every waking moment consumed with thoughts of her. I think of her past, her present, her future. I see her in my dreams. I’ll still be seeing her when I die. Good God, You will have to lock me to the pearly gates of Heaven in golden chains to keep me from any realm that holds her. To hear my name crawl its measly way through the cherry maze of her mouth is pure bliss. Now I know the cry of nature. She is a collapsing star. The light and sound drain from any room she enters and plummets into the infinite depths of her eyes. My breath is sucked in there. My misery too. I am floating. I am flying into Isabella. I am comprised of Isabella, of stars, of thousands and thousands of years of longing and waiting for her and I to exist in the same life and the same time. For us to be sitting side by side at the same table. For her to be eating oranges from a plate that I offer, tilting her luminous chin to the stars. For us to exist in the mirrors in each other’s eyes. For me to behold her image and own it in my mind, if only for a second.
I yearn to hold her hand, to hold it tight.
I need her.
I love her.
Brother #2:
Goodbye, Lorenzo.
We stand over his open, shallow grave. Blood slowly seeps from the gashes in his chest, staining the earth beneath him. His entire face is tinted a ghoulish white, save for his eyes, which are open,bright red, and wet. Tears ooze steadily from them like syrup. His mouth hangs open, her name the only thing to claw its way from his throat as I stabbed at his heart again and again, trying to murder his blatant lust as he tainted her name with his desire. He tried to scratch at my wrists, my eyes, but it was futile. Weak little Lorenzo. You never were very strong. Useless sack of shit, you couldn’t even dig your own grave, not even when my brother held the knife so close to your throat that your face turned yellow with fear and urine stained your trousers.
That’ll show you, Lorenzo, I think as we begin to fill his putrid mouth with earth. That’ll show you to keep your filthy hands to yourself.
Isabella:
He came to me last night. In a dream. It was him. I swear it.
I saw him through the ache of midnight. He sat on the edge of my bed and I felt the chill from his spine drag its way up my sheets and through my cheeks. His hair, once glossy and bright, like the halo of an angel, now grey and wiry like a doll. His once perfect and blushing lips now cracked with a bluish tinge, wheezes leaking from the darkness of his mouth and the holes in his chest. His dead smell, mint and chlorine, marking the air.
Although he was sitting across from me, I could feel his whisper, his breath, right inside my ear. He wept to me about my brothers, their murderous spite, and their swords. He moaned for me to find his forest tomb, deep in the western forest, under the small berry tree , to dig him up, and to bring him home. He told me that he loved me. That he loved me so much it had killed him.
The morning comes and I instruct my old maid to come with me on my rescue. Her small and sweaty hands cling to my waist as we ride my horse towards the forest, towards the freshly-dug grave of love. I watch her shovel at the earth, feeling her scrutinising gaze fall on me every so often. I know she thinks I am mad with longing. I know she thinks my dream is merely that — a dream spurred by the frantic lust of a woman aching for her lover. As soon as the smell causes tears to stream down her cheeks I hurry beside her, clawing at the earth with my hands, bile burning my tongue.
Lorenzo, my God, what have they done to you? My angel, my boy. Lying in this dirty, yawning tomb, the bush of berries above your head dripping their juices into your eyes. Look how they’ve torn at your clothes, the stains on your cheeks, the earth on your tongue. My dear, my love. I can’t take all of you with me. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me, Lorenzo. I don’t know what to take. Every part of you is so dear to me. Your hands, which filled me with fear and delight at the slightest touch. Your chest that I still ache to rest my cheek upon and hear the thumping of your life. Your eyes, your lips. I will save you from this misery, Lorenzo. I will take you back home.
My maid and I, we take your head. It takes a long time, using only a shovel, but finally with a sickening squelch you’re back in my arms, wrapped up in my finest silk scarf. Soon we will be home.
My brothers, they will surely steal you if they find you. They will slay you again, and again, and again, until there is nothing left of you for me to save. My desperate Lorenzo. What to do with you?
Here, in this pot of basil right next to my bed. That way I can be close to you. That way I can smell you, from when I wake in the morning to when I drift into slumber at night. Not that I sleep much anymore. All I dream is wicked visions of you, calling for me to gather the rest of you. But I can’t, Lorenzo. Believe me, I tried. I only have so many places I can hide you.
But don’t worry, my love. I will take care of you. I will give you a new life. This soil shall feed on your cheeks. These leaves will be fed with my tears. I’ll tend to you, angel. I’ll tend to you because I love you. You will be mine forever, they can’t take you from me again. Finally we can be together.
