A Golden Web (12 page)

The thought of this left her strangely confused. She
would not have guessed him to be one of those men who prefer the love of their own gender—but how did one tell, really? The ancients seemed to have taken such love in stride, especially when it was between an older man and a younger one. Beauty was beauty, after all, no matter whether the possessor of it was male or female.

The Church, of course, took quite a different view. Alessandra thought that if she ever were to love a man, she would want him to be just like Otto. She admired him in so many ways, finding in him not only a nobility of spirit but also a kindness that seemed quite remarkable. He was beautiful as well in face and body—strong and well made, yet graceful. It pained her, in these moments, to think that he might not—as a man who preferred men—be able to return her feelings, even if she could unmask herself to him.

And yet she knew that very unmasking might well mark the end of his affection for her!

When he sat with her, late into the night—as they parsed Latin together and she could feel the heat of him so close to her—her head swam with the frustration and unfairness of it. More than once she leaned so close that
her lips nearly brushed his cheek. But every time she stopped herself, pushing herself up from the bench where they sat to go outside and gulp the cool night air—or simply telling Otto that she was too sleepy to study anymore.

Then she’d lie in her bed alone, thinking about him—there, just on the other side of the wall.

Things were going more beautifully for Alessandra at Mondino’s than she ever could have hoped.

She treasured the atmosphere that supported her academic aspirations while also letting her drink at the well of family life. Everyone there, with the exception of Bene, treated Sandro with kindness and affection. Otto was especially generous, with his wealth as well as his time. He always included Sandro in the lavish dinners he arranged in town for the slightest reason—a saint’s day or acing an examination. He shared books with Sandro, sat by him at lectures, talked about life and philosophy, and joked with him as men are wont to do when they spend a great deal of time together.

One Sunday afternoon, sitting side by side on a bank
overlooking a stream in Barbiano, Otto confided his fears about the marriage his father had arranged for him. Alessandra started—it was the first she’d heard anything about Otto’s betrothal.

“I just don’t know,” he told Sandro, “whether it will suit me, living in such close proximity to someone I’ve never even met before. And not only a sheltered girl from the country, but one who has spent the last year in a silent convent. What sort of conversation can such a girl offer me?”

Sitting next to Alessandra, Otto couldn’t see her eyes grow wide.

She told herself that there were thousands of girls destined for marriage who were shut away in silent convents to await their wedding day. It was true enough that her father did business with Otto’s family. But she knew, from what she’d seen with her own eyes on her fifteenth name day, that her parents had promised her to a man who was, in Nicco’s words, an “old git.”

How she envied this girl who, when Otto was done with school, would sit by the fire with him at night, hear his confidences, and share his bed.

“Well,” she said aloud, “I would guess that she’d be hungry for conversation, after all that silence!”

Otto laughed. “Would that she had even half the wit you do—although there’s precious little chance of that!” He tossed a pebble into the stream below them, watching the ripples it made. “All the girls paraded before me by my parents have been particularly docile and dull.”

“But you approved this one.”

Otto shook his head, then leaned it back against Alessandra’s shoulder. She could tell that he had bathed and washed his hair. He was the cleanest man she’d ever known. The smell and the proximity of him were intoxicating.

“I didn’t approve her.” He sighed. “I haven’t even met her.”

Alessandra barely dared to move. “And yet you’re promised to her?”

“I put the matter into my father’s hands. I was tired of the spectacle of all those disappointed girls—and anxious to be off to school again.”

“But you…” Alessandra hesitated. “You like girls, don’t you, Otto?”

Otto jumped up as suddenly as if he’d been stung by a bee. “Of course I do!” He and Alessandra looked at each other long and hard, and then Otto looked away. “Of course I do!”

He sat down beside her again, but with more distance between them.

Alessandra in her turn threw a pebble into the stream. “Do you think, Otto, that you could ever like—a bookish girl?”

“I’ve never met one! But if I did…” He elbowed Alessandra gently in the ribs. “And if she were comely—well, then! Such a girl would have to run very fast to escape me!”

Alessandra leaped out of the way just in time to avoid being tackled by Otto. The leap turned into a game of tag between them, jumping back and forth across the stream until Alessandra’s foot slipped and she landed up to her waist in the icy water. When Otto, laughing, extended his hand to help her out, she pulled him in after her. Half choking with laughter and each tripping over the other’s limbs, they splashed and dunked each other until their clothes and hair were sodden. Otto pulled at
Alessandra’s sleeve as she tried to make her escape—and the fabric of it ripped noisily.

“I’m sorry!” he said. “I’ll buy you a new—” He stopped midphrase as the fabric fell away, exposing her naked shoulder…and the cloth wrapped tightly around her breasts.

He grabbed at her arms as if she were about to wash downstream. Alessandra, seeing what he saw, gave up on trying to cover herself again. She held herself straight and tall and looked up into Otto’s eyes. “I am still myself,” she said. “And I hope to God I am still your friend!”

He shook her then, so hard at first that she feared he was reacting much as Bene had—and her heart filled with dread. But then he was hugging her close to him, alternately patting her back and caressing her damp, curling hair. “Oh, I cannot tell you—” He was half laughing, half crying, and the effect was such that she couldn’t tell what he was saying. “I thought—I wondered…,” he stammered, until finally she tilted her face upwards, grabbed his shoulders, and kissed him on the mouth.

“Sweet Otto!”

“Oh, my sweet—but who are you, my changeling?”

She kissed him again, and he kissed her back, this time with such tenderness that they both felt on fire although they were standing up to their ankles in the stream.

“Who would you have me be?” she asked him, pushing him far enough away so that they weren’t kissing anymore, but close enough so that they might do so again at any moment.

Otto caressed her cheek in a way he hadn’t dared—and hadn’t wanted to—when he thought she was a boy. “I would have you be the girl my parents chose for me.”

“And what is the name of that fortunate female?” she asked him, hardly daring to breathe.

He ran a hand through her chestnut curls and down her neck and over her naked shoulder, admiring its shape. “She is the daughter of the stationer Giliani of Persiceto. Her Christian name is Alessandra.”

The love that Alessandra felt for her Papa in that moment—her wise, wonderful, brilliant Papa—lit her face like a sunrise. “You are betrothed to Alessandra Giliani?”

“I am, alas—but I will not marry her!”

“Oh, never say that, Otto!”

“But I love you!”

Alessandra kissed him again. “If you love me, you must promise to marry no one but Alessandra Giliani.”

Otto looked at her, hope also dawning in his face and clearly doing battle there with doubt that such a thing—such a marvelous thing—could possibly be real. He began to speak but she hushed him, putting her hand over his mouth. “Promise me!”

He removed her hand, turned it over, and kissed her upturned palm. “I promise that I will marry no one but you!”

“That will have to do then.” She stole another kiss, savoring the taste of him—and then broke away and ran back toward the house, covering her naked skin as best she could in Sandro’s sodden clothes.

Mondino was about to leave Sandro alone with a windfall corpse
that had just come to him from the hospital. They were by the river. It was early morning and the sky was bright but cold.

The body was that of a prostitute who died in childbirth. No one knew her—or, at least, no one would admit to knowing her. The hospital sold her body to Mondino to raise money for her newly orphaned child, who had been cut out of his mother when she died too soon to deliver him.

“I must change my clothes and make sure the runner has done his work,” said Mondino. But then he saw the look on his young assistant’s face. “Are you all right?”

Alessandra bit her lip and tried to look professional. “My mother, God rest her soul, died in just the same way when my little brother was delivered.”

“A gruesome business! I would not myself be a woman for all the world.”

“Magister…”
Alessandra waylaid him before he left to spread the word in the medical school that he’d be doing a dissection. “When a woman is so exhausted from her labor that she’s in danger of dying, couldn’t the babe be cut out of her then, while both are still alive?”

“Only if the babe is a future king will a woman be ripped open before she’s dead—because such a cut could only kill her.”

“But if we knew more precisely where to cut, and where not to cut—wouldn’t it be possible then?” Alessandra thought of a completely different childhood for herself, in which her mother had lived.

“It would take a miracle or black magic,” said Mondino. “Certain midwives boast of having done it—but any man
of science is wise to keep his distance from the likes of them.” He clapped Alessandra on the back. “Carry on, Sandro! Get her ready and cover her up until I return with the hordes.”

That night, after the dissection, Alessandra stayed up late in her room, writing in her notebook. She meant to go to bed. But then she woke, very stiff and cold, the remnants of a dream sticking to her like cobwebs.

There were two rivers, one bloodred and the other blue. There was an island in the center where the rivers crossed. The island was teeming with animal life, although Alessandra couldn’t recognize any of the creatures there. But she could tell from the pulse of the place that it was indeed filled with living things—with life itself. The rivers were wide where the island parted them, but each one branched out in scores of tributaries, bloodred and blue, into streams of diminishing size with the smallest as fine as a spider’s leg.

The oddest thing about these rivers was that they ran both ways, back and forth to the island, like a living tide.

She shook herself more fully awake—and then felt her way out of her room and into the kitchen to relight her candle. Maxie was sitting there, alone by the fire, doing a bit of sewing. She nearly pitched her little piece of embroidery into the flames when she jumped up to greet Alessandra.

“Sandro! You’re still awake.”

Alessandra’s eyes were hurting. She mustered a smile for Maxie. “As are you! It’s late and rather dark for needlework, isn’t it?”

Maxie had hidden whatever she was working on behind her back. It seemed to be an embroidered pen-case. “I couldn’t sleep—and I didn’t want to wake my sister.”

“You’re a good girl.”

“Do you think so?” Maxie’s eyes were shining. “Papa told me that you’re doing wonderfully well—he has great hopes for you!”

This was, of course, welcome news. Alessandra planned to petition the following year, if she could keep up the pace of her work, for admission to the medical school. Mondino’s support would ensure her success—or at least Sandro’s.

She sighed, thinking about the sweetness of Otto’s kisses—and wondering if she would ever be able to be her true self in the world again.

In the dancing shadows from the fire, Maxie sat back down and patted the place on the bench next to her. “Come sit awhile! It must be cold in your room.”

Alessandra looked down at her fingernails; they were blue, and she shivered. “It’s quite cold there now. Do you know if Otto has returned from town yet?”

Maxie’s expression changed. “Oh, Otto!” she said peevishly. “I suppose your room is less cold when he spends time there with you.”

“It is much warmer and pleasanter here right now—believe me!” Alessandra plunked herself down on the bench and gave Maxie a friendly kiss on the cheek.

She realized too late the mistake she’d made. Maxie’s breathing became rapid and shallow, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes were suddenly swimming in tears. “Sandro!” She breathed the name rather than spoke it. “My most beloved!” She threw herself at Alessandra, pressing her lips to Alessandra’s lips, caressing her cheeks and shoving her eager little breasts against the binding cloth beneath
Alessandra’s chemise.

Alessandra pushed the girl away from her like a swimmer pushing away from the shore.

Maxie began to cry. “I thought—”

Alessandra shook her head and impulsively took both of Maxie’s pretty hands in hers. “It’s altogether impossible. But you must not think it has anything to do with you!”

Maxie buried her face in her hands. “I am too thin!”

“Not a bit of it! You’re quite perfect—any man would love you. But, I don’t know how to say this to you, Maxie….”

Mina came into the room then, her face lit by her candle. Alessandra thought she looked like an angel. “Then perhaps you should not say it.”

Maxie ran to her. “Oh, Mamma!”

“Hush, child, and go to bed!” Mina kissed her elder daughter, gave her the candle, and sent her sniffling out the door.

Sitting down next to Alessandra on the bench in the firelight, Mina took Alessandra’s cap off her head, tousled her curls, caressed her smooth cheek, and pulled the girl
close to her. “Would you like to tell the truth to me?”

Alessandra’s eyes welled up with tears. “I cannot!”

“Will you break poor Maxie’s heart?”

Alessandra didn’t want to ever have to leave the safety and comfort of this home and these arms. She felt so tired suddenly. She could feel the courage ebb out of her.

“My love of learning,” she said, looking up into Mina’s eyes, “has been the cause of a great deception.”

“Cara mia,”
said Mina softly, using the feminine form of this endearment and—in those two small words—revealing that she knew the truth already.

Alessandra shifted her position so that her head was resting on Mina’s shoulder. “Have you known for long?” she asked, barely able to muster the energy to speak. “Was it Bene who told you?”

“You told me yourself, my dear. Did you think I wouldn’t find the soiled rags from your flux? Did it not worry you, being all alone and finding yourself bleeding?”

Alessandra sat up a little without leaving Mina’s embrace. “I had read of it, and so it did not surprise me—although it made my insides ache, and still does.” She
sighed. “I am the elder girl, and my mother died before I could take notice of such things—and my nanny left before my flowering.”

Mina was smiling down at her. “And what is your name, elder girl?”

Alessandra looked into Mina’s eyes. They were filled with kind intention and a woman’s wisdom such as she hadn’t seen anywhere for a long time. She yearned to tell her name finally to another woman—and found that her heart was bursting with pride, because Mina would understand the enormity and the daring of what she’d done. “Alessandra,” she murmured. And then, a little louder and more clearly, “Alessandra Giliani.”

Mina took it in, pausing as if tasting something new. “It’s a good name,” she said, adding, “and one, I suspect, that will be long remembered.”

“Do you think so?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mina. “I am quite sure of it.” She folded Alessandra in her arms again and held her tenderly.

As she allowed herself to relax into Mina’s warm embrace, Alessandra experienced a floodtide of memories
of her own mother. She thought how there are some things that cannot be learned in books or lectures but only in the experience of feeling them. In that sweet scent of a woman’s flesh and the soft caress of firelight, she fell utterly—and quite to her own surprise—fast asleep.

Alessandra woke in her own bed without any memory of how she got there. When she ventured out to the kitchen, following the smell of fresh-baked bread, she was uncertain whether she would be greeted as herself or Sandro.

Maxie fled from the room as soon as she saw her. That still told her nothing. Mina was ladling polenta into bowls for Horabilli and her brothers. Otto wasn’t there; nor was Bene. Mondino sat on the bench by the hearth, poring over a manuscript and writing notes on it. He looked up at Alessandra. “Good morning, Sandro,” he said to her with his usual air of distraction. Mina met her eyes and smiled.

Her secret—and her safety—rested now with Bene, Otto, Maxie, and Mina—a veritable crowd of people who knew the truth about her. She wished that Bene was not
in their number. He’d kept his promise so far—but she never ceased to fear that he would change his mind.

Alessandra dawdled in the kitchen that morning until she and Mina were alone. “Will Maxie forgive me?”

“Maxie will be inspired by you,” said Mina, “as soon as she’s had sufficient time to take it in. You’ve done her a service to teach her that romantic love is largely made of illusion.”

“Is it?” Alessandra asked, unable to suppress a worried sigh.

Mina looked at her as if she knew exactly what Alessandra was thinking. “I said ‘romantic love,’ my dear—not true love.”

“But how can one know,” asked Alessandra, “one from the other?”

“True love,” said Mina, “is something that reveals itself only with the passage of time.”