Was her father still alive? And if he was, would he have forgotten all about her by now? She had been gone for so long, and the only communications they received were intelligence reports that kept them on the move.
Throughout the salt mine and in some of the palaces and residences Frank owned, she’d seen artifacts that had come through her basement office. She had deemed them worthy or unworthy. Perhaps she’d been given more power than she deserved, more authority over the property of others than she should have. Who was she to say what was truly valuable and what wasn’t? She didn’t want to see these works of incalculable value lost. Master paintings and objects, each one irreplaceable.
Now, Edith, Ernst, and a few other staff and soldiers accompanying the family for security, stepped carefully through the rubble of a salt mine in Altaussee, Austria. It was the first time in nearly three years that Edith had set foot in German-speaking lands.
They passed a small room that the soldiers were using as a latrine. Edith cringed as she realized what she’d seen: paintings inside the dark, dank cell, propped against the wall.
“Stop!” she said, grasping Ernst’s forearm. “You cannot keep pictures in the latrine!” she scolded the soldier who was leading them. “Have you no sense?” Edith stepped into the reeking room and pulled out two large landscapes darkened by time and soil. She wished she could take them to her conservation studio at once.
But looking around her at the hundreds of invaluable works of art piled inside the darkness of the salt mine, Edith felt desperation fill her throat. What if the Nazi officers blew it up of their own accord as they fled, a desperate assurance that it would never fall into their enemies’ hands? And what if the Anglo-American forces bombed the mines without realizing what treasures lay inside? Time was not on their side, Edith realized. How could she get her secret inventories into the right hands without risking her own life?
64
Cecilia
Milan, Italy
June 1491
CECILIA WAS IN LOVE.
As she watched her son’s chest rise and fall with each breath, she curled him in her arms and thought that she might never let go. All she wanted to do was stare into the baby’s dark eyes—deep, midnight pools, just like his father’s.
The chambermaid dusted motes from the corners, where they came in with the open windows and the heavy, clammy heat. Now, the shutters were closed against a summer storm, the rain and distant thunder beating a steady, comforting rhythm for those inside the palace, while turning the world outside into a slippery, frightful mess. Cecilia inhaled the dampness, which smelled of trees and the country. It brought an image of running through the woods as a girl, and for a moment she longed to escape this city of gray stone and return home to Tuscany. If Ludovico turned her away, Cecilia thought, maybe she could find a way back home. Whatever happened, Cecilia was just grateful to be alive.
In the dim light, Cecilia traced the baby’s perfect profile with one finger. She ran her thumb down to his hand, and he squeezed it in his tiny fist. Violina pressed her damp nose to the baby’s neck, inhaling sharply and looking at Cecilia’s face for reassurance before settling at her side on the bed.
In a small room off Cecilia’s chambers, the wet nurse unpacked her meager belongings. There was little for the woman to do, as Cecilia had insisted on putting the baby to her own breast. No one else could love her son this much, maybe not even Ludovico.
Four days gone. Four days, and Ludovico still had not come to lay eyes on his new son. Every time the door opened she hoped to see his face, but it was only a chambermaid, a kitchen servant, or Lucrezia.
The day before, the duke’s secretary, Giancarlo, had arrived in her chambers with some fanfare, presenting Cecilia with the gift of a large, flat gilded box. She had opened it to find several large sheets of parchment, heavy with wax seals hanging from the bottom of the documents. She ran her finger across the Latin words etched out in brown ink. Pavia. Saronno. Additional place names she had never heard of before. Tracts with rice and grapevines. Land deeds naming Cecilia Gallerani as the owner. More pages with ownership of cattle and horse-breeding farms in the Po Valley delta.
Her eyes flickered to her dressing table, which was piled with more gifts from Ludovico and people in his court who had never paid her the least bit of attention before now. Hand-stitched clothing and adornments for the baby. Honey cakes and sweets of almond paste made in a nearby convent. A large gilded tray painted with scenes of the life of Saint Anne. Ceramic plates and small bits of pearl for her hair and silver threads to trim her dresses.
Even her loyal court poet, Bernardo, had paid her two visits and had even composed a lovely sonnet in honor of Cesare’s birth. But mostly, Cecilia remained alone in bed, curled up with her infant and her dog.
A firm knock on the door and Cecilia felt hope swell through her body. Ludovico? But as the door opened a crack, Cecilia recognized her brother’s wide brow and sheepish grin instead.
65
Edith
Neuhaus am Schliersee, Germany
January 1945
“WOULD YOU LIKE A DRINK?”
Hans Frank walked over to the bar cart near a window overlooking a breathtaking view of Schliersee Lake. From this vantage point, Edith could see the familiar sloping roofs of fine Bavarian homes, and beyond, snow-capped peaks. Only an hour’s drive from Munich. Could she find a way back home? Whatever happened, Edith was just grateful to be alive.
“No, thank you.”
“I have Polish vodka.” Frank grinned at his reference to their first meeting in Kraków. Edith only kept her eyes on the patterned carpet. She stood, hands folded in front of her, next to a hulking desk in the office of the centuries-old farmhouse that formed the heart of Frank’s family estate.
Frank’s farmhouse, Schoberhof, was enormous but nearly empty. Brigitte Frank had gone out, and Frank’s children were playing outside, running in the snow on the expansive bank that sloped toward the lake. The cook and housekeepers must have been working in the kitchens, Edith thought, tucked away in the bowels of the house. She mused that they, too, must have wanted to stay out of sight. The only sound was the clock ticking loudly in the hall.
On the way to Frank’s farmhouse, they had stopped to drop a truckload of treasures and armed guards at Frank’s former office in Neuhaus. Frank had tasked Ernst with the secure delivery of the works as a gift to another high-ranking Nazi official in Munich.
Then, Edith found herself alone. For a moment, she allowed herself to fantasize that she might be allowed to return home. But instead, to her great dismay, Frank had insisted that Edith continue on to his private villa with the family. Now, Edith was essentially a prisoner. Her home, her father, was less than an hour’s drive from those snow-capped mountains, but she could not leave the estate. She was afraid of what Frank might do if she crossed him, or dared to leave.
Da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine was not on the list of works to be dropped at Frank’s former office. Instead, the picture now sat in its wooden crate, just a few feet from where Edith stood, in Frank’s home. Edith took some comfort in having her eyes on the picture, knowing that it was safe. She worried about the other paintings—the Rembrandt, the Raphael, the many others of incalculable value that had been shipped around constantly in recent months.