“I am not,” he retorted, and moved on.
She followed. The door had closed, in any event. They couldn’t hear anything. Miucci had no idea who the man behind them was. He didn’t care.
The woman fell into step with him, along the corridor and then down the Stairway of Heroes. She took his arm again, descending the marble stairs, the way a wife might do.
Miucci stole another glance at her. Her gaze was lowered now, either submissively, or watching where she stepped, or upon some private amusement. He was very much unsure which.
She said, eyes still down, “We had best become adept at walking this way, don’t you think?”
He couldn’t think what to say. He seemed to have agreed to present himself in Dubrava as married to a woman he’d never seen before this day. It was astonishing how a man could be drawn into something mad, at speed. So much speed! You didn’t have any proper time to think. Perhaps that was deliberate. The duke and council pressed you so swiftly that careful thought was impossible. In his life, in his practice, Jacopo Miucci had greatly valued time to think.
But he wanted this posting. Of course he did. Every young physician coveted these positions. Dubrava paid exceptionally well for doctors. You could come home after two years with the money to buy a very good residence and practice chambers, and with your reputation made—as a physician the council had deemed worthy of sending across the water.
But you needed to be married to go to Dubrava now, since an unfortunate incident some time ago.
It seemed, therefore, that for the benefits the position offered he was to simulate the state of marriage. And the woman assigned to be his wife would have tasks for the council. It was dangerous, surely, whatever the duke said. It had to be dangerous. He ought to have refused. But then someone would have said yes, loyally aiding the republic, seizing the posting and all the good things that followed.
The woman had yellow hair under a green cap. He looked at her again, on his arm. They would be engaged in a profane violation of the Jad-blessed state of matrimony. His cleric back home would be aghast if he knew. So would his mother.
The cleric—and everyone else—would be caused to believe Jacopo had met and swiftly, unexpectedly, married this woman. Documents would reflect as much. She was from Mylasia, apparently. The story would have to do with his gallantly rescuing a transgressing woman from her sad state, after being called to offer medical services at a sanctuary.
It did happen. Not every aristocratic girl who’d borne an inconvenient child was suited to the life of a retreat, and since she could no longer marry among the nobility . . .
This particular transgressing woman said, a hand gripping his arm above the elbow, as if for balance and support, “I understand we are to spend tonight at your home. I am much looking forward to seeing it, and to learning more about you, Doctor Miucci.”
Unmistakably, her fingers tightened on his arm.
Equally unmistakably, Doctor Jacopo Miucci, who had led a studious, unadventurous existence until this day and night, felt the stirrings of desire.
It was the perfume, he told himself. Scents had power. Doctors knew it. They could aid in healing, soothe the distressed . . . contribute to suborning the most disciplined of men.
Other aspects of the woman besides her perfume contributed to further suborning later that night after they reached his home.
He explained to his manservant when the door was opened to his knock that he had married that day and would be going abroad to work. No point waiting to say it. He presented his bride to his three servants. They were visibly taken aback. Astonished would be the better word. Of course they were. He was. Three mouths fell open, one man reached out a hand to support himself on the wall. Miucci supposed this could be seen as amusing. Leonora Valeri—Leonora Miucci now—laughed, but gently. She greeted the servants, repeated their names.
The night unfolded surprises, like a silken cloth opening, on display. There came a moment, after they’d dined and gone upstairs together, when Jacopo Miucci realized, in the darkness of his bedchamber, that he had surrendered fairly comprehensively to the idea that he and this woman were to be man and wife in Dubrava for the next two years.
It occurred when she whispered, with what appeared to be unfeigned pleasure as she caressed his sex anew, bringing it back to life, in ways only purchased women ever had, “Oh! How delightful of you, doctor.”
—
SORROW IS ENDURING. It can define a life. Leonora had come to understand this through the course of a year. It could be deep as any well, cold as mountain lakes or forest paths in winter. It was harder than stone walls, or her father’s face.
Her child had been taken away at birth. She has barely any memory of seeing it. The boy who fathered it had been killed by her family. She had moved through the days since then among the Daughters of Jad, waking or sleeping much the same to her, sunlight and rain much the same.
She’d been a girl, then a young woman, of spirit, laughter, cleverness. Sources of her trouble? They’d said that in the retreat. They’d said so at home. She needed to learn submission: to the god, the world. To her father’s will, which had placed her there.
Her family were important in Mylasia, among the most powerful aristocrats. A grand palace in the city, a castle outside, a hunting lodge farther out. Her father enjoyed hunting. He had once enjoyed taking her with him, proud of her skill. The family’s significance was another source of her trouble, of course: the Valeris are too prominent. Have enemies who would relish her disgrace. She’d been sent north, away. Entirely and eternally away until she died behind those walls. Removed from sight and memory.
They had probably told people she’d already died. Illness, they will have said: sent in search of a physician who could cure her. Seressa was said to have the best doctors. So sad, they will have said. A beloved child, even if a girl.
She will never know where her own child is.
She doesn’t even know if it was a girl or a boy. They’d moved quickly, claiming it from her body. Someone else has named it, someone will watch it grow, laugh and weep, see the moons change and the seasons return.
Paulo Canavli, who had touched her heart and awakened her body, has no burial place. He had been cut into pieces and left for the wolves outside the walls of Mylasia. Her eldest brother had told her that, viciously, while bringing her to Seressa.
He hadn’t said any other words to her on the way, or at the end. No farewell. Her father’s orders, very surely. He never disobeyed their father. None of her brothers did. Erigio Valeri was accustomed to being obeyed, within and without his family. Her brother had taken her to the gates of the retreat and left her in the roadway there. He had turned and ridden away, towards home, to the richness life held for him.
Eventually, she had pulled a rope that rang a bell. They’d been expecting her. Of course they had. A very large sum would have been provided to ensure she was admitted—and never left. Leonora had gone in, heard an iron gate close behind her.
Time had passed in that place. Her body grew. A child was born and was taken away. There were prayers at dawn and sunset. Awake, asleep, seasons and sorrow.
The Council of Twelve sent two men to speak with her.
She hadn’t been sure how they even knew she was there. Now, she is certain she is not the first woman brought to the retreat to have been asked to assist the council. Money will have changed hands for this, as well. The retreat is extremely wealthy.
She never asked about this, but it makes sense, and after that visit, after what was carefully hinted at then directly queried, she’d begun thinking in terms of what made sense in a life. Of choices and chances, decisions to be weighed.
The same two men had come back from Seressa a little later, after giving her time to consider what they offered—which was an opportunity to be in the world again.
She had accepted. She’d left t
he Daughters of Jad this morning at dawn. They’d had a horse for her. She was a Valeri, she had hunted from childhood, of course she knew how to ride. They’d known that, too. She’d looked back once in misty greyness: the stone walls, the sanctuary dome, the bell by the gate. The gate had already closed behind her.
And so now, that same night, she is in Seressa, away from that solitude and judgment and false sanctity, the pinched, fearful bitterness. Not all, to be fair—there were genuinely pious women in that place, kind ones. They had tried, but had been no help to her at all: she was never one of the bitter, she was simply claimed by sorrow.
And she doesn’t want to live her days under the god’s sun that way.
She’d needed to be out from those walls. And if her new path—offered by these endlessly subtle Seressinis—might, at its end, bring more shame upon her, upon her family, at least it was a path. It went somewhere. Her mind would be engaged, her spirit. And she wasn’t going to spend a single morning, not the length of a dawn prayer, not a candle-flicker moment, dwelling on her family’s pride or shame or her father’s views about what she did.
Did she love Seressa? The republic she was now to serve? Of course not. She wasn’t sure most Seressinis did, though she might be wrong about that.
They were proud of their independence, their republic. They valued power, wished to defend it and extend it, were aware of threats moving through the world. They were no worse than anyone else, she told herself, perhaps better than some. She could help them, in exchange for a gate unlocked. She would do that, and let no one judge her but Jad, who sees all with mercy and understands sorrow.
She had taken herself to that place in her mind, while preparing to leave the sanctuary.
And then, so unexpectedly, the doctor she was to pretend to have wed turned out to be a shy, decent man. She thought there might be kindness in him.
She was the one who was kind that first night. There were things she had learned (in joy) from the boy she’d loved and been loved by. These could be shared. It was necessary, what she did in the dark of Miucci’s room. They were to pass as husband and wife, newly wed, and their assigned servants in Dubrava would be watching them, and listening. But Leonora discovered, with surprise, that eliciting gratitude carried a different sort of pleasure, and she permitted herself to feel that, accept it, a form of mercy after a shadowed year.
The sun would emerge from the sea on a different world for her. She would still wonder, then and every single morning when she rose with the god’s light, where her child was that day, if it was alive, cared for, if it was loved, if Jad was good enough to permit that to be so.
—
JACOPO MIUCCI, PHYSICIAN, found himself experiencing many unexpected emotions in his bed at night beside a woman he had not even known in the morning—emotions over and above, well past desire. He was weary in the darkness but not sleepy, his mind shuttling from thought to thought, over-engaged. So much had happened. He had lived a very quiet life.
He found himself remembering that other man’s voice, behind them in the council chamber, shouting fiercely: “How dare your guards accost me!”
That had been reckless. But it needed to be acknowledged that it was also a showing of courage in a room where it was difficult to be brave. Men could rise to courage. This was the thought that came to Miucci, in the dark beside a strange woman. He wondered if that other man was dead now, or progressing towards death in an underground chamber equipped with implements. He shivered.
He felt the press of the woman’s body next to his. He was aware of her perfume, lingering. If he turned his head, his face would touch her unbound golden hair. He listened, lying very still, and from her breathing decided she was not asleep.
He said, softly, “I believe I understand what you have done, why you accepted the council’s offer.”
“Do you, doctor?” she murmured, after a moment. He couldn’t see her, there was no light.
“I might . . . or some of why. But I . . . I am also of the view that they have not properly attended to you.”
“Attended to me? Surely you just did that,” she said, still softly. He could hear amusement—or the feigning of it. He wasn’t sure.
He cleared his throat. “No. But I would like to, signora.” A breath. “Is there a reason we cannot be wed in the morning, properly? I have little to offer a woman from a noble family but I—”
Fingers to his lips in the dark. When next she spoke he realized that she was fighting tears. It caught at his heart like a hook. He was not a man for whom such intensity had occurred very often.
She said, “It cannot happen. Thank you, though. Thank you. That is more generous than words can say. I . . . had no expectation of this at all. But no, signore. The council can ask us to simulate a marriage, ask me to work for them. But doctor, they cannot take my father’s power from him. I cannot marry without his willing it.”
“How old are you? If I may ask.”
She was silent a moment. He thought he’d offended. Women were easy to offend, in his limited experience.
“I was nineteen in the winter.”
He had thought older, she was so poised. That happened among aristocrats, he supposed. He’d had few dealings with aristocrats. He hadn’t had a medical practice for long. He was hardly known in Seressa. Was that why they’d chosen him? He hadn’t considered that. It might be so.
He said, “And he will not consent? Your father? He would not accept if I asked and affirmed truly that—?”
The hand to his mouth again. She left her fingers there, gently, then withdrew them.
Eventually he slept.
When he woke to sunshine through the shutters he was alone in the bed. He found her downstairs discussing with his servants (their servants) which belongings of his—books, clothing, instruments and compounds—would need to be packed for a sea voyage, and how this should best be done.
She greeted him with a kiss, like a bride.
As the door closed behind the doctor and the spy, the Duke of Seressa turned his attention to the artist he’d had investigated, then summoned at night.
He had intended it to be discreet. Was there nothing done properly any more? Was that the way of the world in which they now lived?
He was tired and vexed, reminded himself to be careful this did not undermine their purpose here. He had thought to allow more time for this particular devising, but you couldn’t always do that, and there was an opportunity worth seizing—if they could. A part of governance was planning ahead; another was responding to what was handed to you, however unexpectedly.
They had needed someone without ties, without reasons to refuse them—as had been the case with the Valeri girl and the doctor. This young man—Viero Villani’s only son—was another such person. On the other hand, his entrance just now proclaimed him extremely unhappy. It was fair to note he had reason to be.
“Be silent until you are addressed!” Lorenzo Arnesti snapped at the artist from halfway down the table.
Arnesti was one of those here with ambitions. He wasn’t troubling to mask them. A mistake. Too soon to be so transparent.
We don’t wear masks only at Carnival.
The duke remembered his uncle saying that. Years ago. Time could run away from a man. He raised a hand now, a ringed finger lifted in admonishment. Arnesti looked quickly at him, then smoothed his features. Masked them.
The duke said, “The council apologizes for the manner of this, Signore Villani. There is a reason why your presence has been besought in this fashion. I trust you have not been injured and that you will permit us to explain?”
“Do I have a choice, my lord duke? May I turn now and leave?”
Perhaps a little too much bristling after a courteous greeting from power. The duke allowed his gaze to linger a moment before he replied. He marked, by the lamps to either side of the artist, that the pause did regis
ter.
“Of course you may go. Our hope is that you are at least curious as to the proposal we wish to make, and will listen before you leave us.”
Proposal was the word that mattered. If the man was intelligent he’d catch it.
He was, he did. Duke Ricci saw Villani’s son lower his gaze and take a moment to steady himself. His shoulders settled a little. He was quite young. It was a part of why he was here, of course. When he looked up it was with a different expression.
“Proposal?” he asked, as expected.
Men were, Duke Ricci thought, not difficult to control most of the time. You just needed to have been doing it long enough. And have power, of course. You needed the ability to have them killed. His uncle had said something like that, too. The duke’s father had been one of those killed. Also many years ago.
He said, “Let me say first that the council were all admirers of your father’s work, may Jad shelter him in light. In my own view he was a great master.” Flattery was almost always effective.
Almost always. “Say you so, my lord duke?” said the younger Villani. “A great master? Such a shame that none of such a master’s work adorns the ducal palace.”
There was, even after all these years, pleasure to be derived from encountering spirit and intelligence. He preferred it in a woman, or he had, but it tended to matter more in men. He didn’t have time for this tonight, but it did spark interest. He didn’t recall the father, met two or three times, being like this at all.
“But one of his works hangs even now in our envoy’s residence in Obravic,” he said. “The Arsenale seen from across the lagoon.” He was pleased with himself for remembering that. He doubted Lorenzo Arnesti would have.
Villani’s son shrugged. “I know the work. It was part of the forced disposition of his property after death. Taken for a pittance. I understand the republic bought it for little more than that.”
The duke managed a smile. He lifted a hand again, because Arnesti looked ready to interject. He said, “We Seressinis are well known for frugality in our purchases. But Signore Villani, I call your father to mind as a good man, loyal to the republic. Is his son the same?”
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