Agnola works hard to keep panic off her face. “Quicksilver? I had no idea. You know they say quicksilver can poison you. What if all your health problems are because of that quicksilver?”
Dolce smirks. “I don’t eat it. I don’t touch it. It can’t hurt just to breathe it. Anyway, you agreed to help me. Here’s what I need for Carnevale: a peddler’s dress and a basket of bodice laces.”
“No gown? Instead, a disguise of an ugly peddler’s dress?”
Dolce grasps Agnola by the wrist. “I thought you sympathized with the popolo.”
Agnola pulls away before Dolce’s grasp can get too tight. “Sympathies aside, a noblewoman goes to the masked balls in the finest clothing possible. Only the mask disguises us, not a whole costume.”
“Weren’t you just saying how people need Carnevale because they need to break the rules? The rules of Carnevale itself should be held no more sacrosanct than any others.”
It’s true. How Dolce can reason so well when it’s clear that she’s half mad dizzies Agnola. “So, go ahead, ask Antonin to buy one. He can get it for practically nothing.”
“No, I want you to do it. Don’t say a word to Antonin or Carlo.”
“All this secrecy, Dolce. It’s not healthy. You must see that. Antonin and Carlo couldn’t care less what you ask them to buy for you.”
“Indulge me, like you said Marin does. Who can it harm, after all?”
“I can’t go outside to buy things.”
“Get Lucia La Rotonda to do it for you. Say you’re helping your sister, Teresa, with a charity case.”
“I won’t lie to Lucia La Rotonda. Clear away this deceit you want to hide behind.”
“You said you’d help me!”
“I will. I’ll simply tell Lucia La Rotonda to do it. No lies.”
“All right, have it your way. Make sure the basket is brimming with laces in beautiful colors. Some of them must be green.”
Bianca’s favorite color. Agnola feels tears form.
“And red.”
“Red laces sold on the streets by a peddler woman? Only the nobility wears red, and nobility would never buy from a peddler,” Agnola says gently. “It will be a poor disguise.”
“Yellow, too. Bright yellow. And you check the colors—your eyes are sharp.” Dolce rubs her hand along one sleeve. “Do you hear me?” She shakes her head and looks around, then her eyes settle on her hands. “And I want cheap gloves, too. And boots. And a cloak. I want the full outfit.”
“All right.”
“By this afternoon.”
“Yes, by this afternoon. But now you must hear me.” Agnola puts force into each word. “When Pietro arrives, I’m going to tell him to go away. Whatever it is you want of him, you have to stop. Leave him alone. He’s nothing to you.”
Dolce looks at Agnola. One side of her mouth goes up in a smile. “You’re quite right. I don’t need Pietro.”
Neve wipes the sleep from her eyes. She rubs with the back of her hands like a child. Darling. As darling as a puppy. She yawns wide, and stretches.
Her eyes open and meet Tommaso’s. She sits up quickly and turns her back to him. “Go outside,” she whispers. “Please.”
Tommaso goes outside. He grabs the shovel and heads for the wrecked area. That’s what he calls the place where the big tree fell in the storm the day before Christmas. It knocked off branches of other trees as it fell. Firewood lies on the ground for the taking. He laughs. He’s no dummy, no matter what the others say. But today he’s not picking up those branches. Yesterday he noticed that a little tree broke clear off when the big tree fell against it. So today Tommaso has come equipped. He has to hunt around quite a while in the predawn fog before he locates it. Right! There it is! He digs. That stump holds on to the earth with all its might. This is hard work, harder than he thought it would be. But Tommaso does it. He’s strong. Now he bashes the stump against the trunk of another tree. He bashes it and bashes it until all the dirt shakes loose and the stump is as clean as it’s going to get. He marches back toward the house, the stump in both arms, with the shovel balanced across the top.
Neve comes through the woods from the opposite direction, a bucket in each hand. They slosh as she walks. She’s already visited the little stream off the Marzenego River where they get fresh water. She stands tall, like a mountain with the sun’s first rays poking out from behind her. She’s strong, too. They’re alike in that. Young and strong. The others are old. Except Bini. But Neve doesn’t like Bini. She never talks to him. She talks to Tommaso.
Tommaso rushes ahead so that he reaches the door before Neve does. He smiles as she looks at the stump in his arms. “It’ll burn longer. You won’t have to go out in the middle of the day for more firewood.”
Neve nods. “Thank you, Tommaso.”
She follows him inside and sets the buckets by the hearth while Tommaso blows at the embers way down low. Neve kneels beside him and flaps a cloth to fan them. They blow and flap and blow and flap. Gradually flames rise around the edges of the stump till it smolders and burns.
“We need a bellows,” whispers Neve. “The one in my room at home is quite pretty: green velvet with walnut handles and a bronze nozzle. I never thought before how lovely such an ordinary thing is.”
“A bellows isn’t ordinary. It takes skill to make.”
Neve presses her lips together. “Right. Nothing’s ordinary when you have to make it yourself. But you all get money for the dogs. You could spend some of it on things that make life easier.”
“Things that make your life easier,” says Ricci from his bed. “That’s what you really mean.” He throws off the covers, stomps across the room, and pees into the chamber pot in the corner.
Tommaso hates it that he does that right in front of Neve.
“The others use the latrine in the morning,” says Neve.
“It’s cold out in that latrine.” Ricci scratches his belly. He reaches for his drawers draped over the back of his chair. “And then I’d miss the pleasure of knowing the fancy noble girl cleaned a pot I dirtied.” He stretches. “Cleaning the chamber pot—that makes you good for something.” He throws off his nightshirt—naked right there behind Neve—and pulls on his clothes.
It’s all right, though. Neve doesn’t look. She’s modest. Just like she won’t let Tommaso watch her dress. She’s good.
Neve drags over the big pot. Tommaso helps her hang it from the hook above the fire.
“Thank you, Tommaso.” Neve empties one whole bucket of water and half of another into the pot. She throws in a handful of wood ash from the tin pail beside the hearth, and a small branch of cypress needles from a pile beside that pail. “Pass your nightshirt to me, Ricci. Please. I’m doing the big laundry today.”
“Again? Is it a new month already?”
“I’m your calendar,” says Neve.
“That makes you good for two things,” says Ricci.
Neve puts her hands on her hips. “I pick the lice out of everyone’s hair.”
“Three, then.”
“I mend your shirts….”
“Enough.”
“I sweep the hearth….”
“Enough, I said.”
“I—”
“Enough!” Ricci throws his nightshirt into the big pot.
“The list is long,” says Neve. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes shine. “I earn my keep and you know it.”
Ricci twists his mouth to one side. “You do work hard.”
“Buying a bellows would be good for everyone, not just me. It would make fire building faster and easier and—”
“Think about it, Neve. You act so clever. Think! Imagine one of us walking into a town and holding out a coin to buy a bellows. You know what would happen?”
Neve looks confused. “No.”
“Exactly. If a big man did it, he’d go home with a bellows. If one of us did it, dressed like we dress—obviously not anyone’s servants but men living on our own—if we did it, who knows what wou
ld happen? We might get roped up like a bull on the way to a stabbing—roped up and sold. We’d be slaves again.”
Neve gasps.
“I was never a slave,” says Tommaso. “Bini and Giordano and me—we were never slaves.”
“You hid for a year, living in an open fishing boat, or you’d have been caught like the others from Torcello. Whatever happened to them would have happened to you. So don’t think you’re better than us.”
Neve’s hand goes to her forehead. She massages the spot between her eyebrows with two fingers.
Tommaso watches her fingers. He loves it when she does that.
She touches her lips now. “Not everyone is horrible, Ricci.”
“She’s right,” says Tommaso. “Our landlord isn’t horrible.”
“His father wasn’t, at least. But who knows what the son will be like now that the old man’s dead?”
Tommaso bites his knuckles. “What? Are we going to be thrown out?”
“No. Don’t worry about it. You’re right, there are decent big people. But think about it, Tommaso and Neve, think. You want us to take chances on who is decent and who isn’t?”
Neve looks at Tommaso. “Please bring me your nightshirt. And would you get mine, too? Please?”
Tommaso loves the way Neve always says “please.” He pulls his nightshirt from under Bini’s feet. Bini groans and rolls over. They sleep head to foot, Tommaso and Bini, in Bini’s bed. Tommaso goes to his old bed, Neve’s bed now, but he thinks of it as their shared bed. They’re destined for each other. He takes her nightshirt and holds it to his face. He breathes deep. This is the best odor in the world.
“Stop slavering over that,” says Ricci. “You’re embarrassing Neve.”
“Thank you for your concern, Ricci,” says Neve, “but I don’t need protection against Tommaso. He’s kind to me.” She takes the bread she baked yesterday from a shelf and sets it on bricks near the fire. “I could take money and go into the nearest town and buy bellows.”
“And what do you think would happen to you?”
“People would talk.” It’s Bini. He sits with the bedcovers pulled up to his chin. “Word would get back to The Wicked One, and she’d come to kill you.”
“Please don’t call her The Wicked One, Bini.”
“Why not? That’s what Pietro calls her.”
“I hate it when he says that. I’ve asked him not to. Please, Bini.”
“Give me a kiss and I’ll never say it again.”
Ricci walks over and smacks Bini across the back of his head. He deserves it; still, Tommaso gives a little shiver.
“You seem to be protecting my honor a lot this morning, Ricci,” says Neve. “Thank you. But I can stand up for myself.”
“What? Are you going to tell me now that Bini is kind to you, too?”
Bini’s still rubbing his head. He makes a face at Neve. Good. She can’t like him if he makes ugly faces.
“Ricci, explain something to me,” says Neve slowly. “If you can’t buy anything with your money, what are you saving it for?”
“Why, to buy back one of us if we get enslaved, of course.” He makes a disgusted face. “We can’t count on being freed out of the blue again.”
“You were freed?” says Neve very softly.
“Five of us were. Don’t get any ideas that we ran off. We have the rights of free men.”
“Five? If Tommaso and Bini and Giordano were never slaves, that leaves only four of you.”
“Pietro, too. You knew that. Alvise told you. Pietro was a slave to the Zeno family, just like I was a slave to the Loredan family.”
“I know those families,” says Neve so softly. “Mamma gave the mothers of those families tiny mirrors. Do you know why you were freed?”
“Maybe a burst of conscience,” says Ricci. “Though Venezia isn’t known for conscience. Maybe random luck.”
Neve frowns. With two fingers she massages between her eyebrows in a circle again.
“I love it when you do that,” says Tommaso.
“Do what?” says Neve.
“Massage your head like that. That’s what the first woman I loved used to do, long ago on Torcello. Do all big women do that?”
Neve drops her hand and shakes her head. “I’ll cut up the bread and make a hot drink. Please wake everyone else, Tommaso. It’s time to start the day.”
“I’m not getting out of bed,” comes a voice. It’s Giallino. “I feel awful. Someone has to feed the dogs for me.”
“I’ll do it,” says Neve.
“No she won’t,” says Ricci. “I will.”
“Thank you, Ricci,” says Neve.
“I’m not doing it as a favor to you. You can’t be allowed to feed the dogs. You’re like Giordano—softhearted. You’d talk to them all, even the hunting dogs, and maybe scratch them under the chin or behind the ears. You do that with the lapdogs. Don’t deny it. But hunting dogs and guard dogs can’t get any affection at all—none—except from their trainer or owner. Those are the rules. It’s the only way they’ll learn to do what they have to do. You can’t be trusted with them.”
“I know the rules, Ricci.”
“Are you really telling me you wouldn’t pet a hunting dog, even if he was a pup?”
Neve bites her bottom lip.
Ricci throws a hand at her in disgust. “Come on, Tommaso and Bini. Let’s feed those dogs.”
Tommaso gives Neve one last look. He likes that she’s softhearted. He likes everything about her. He loves her.
“All you do is work.” Bini sits in bed with his arms crossed. He’s been watching Biancaneve all morning.
She looks at the clump of celery roots clutched in her hand. These four were among the larger ones in the bin; they should be enough for the soup. She rinses them in the water bucket. “If I don’t work, you’ll throw me out.”
“No one’s going to throw you out.”
“Ricci will.” Biancaneve peels the roots. She’s learned to peel well, go way down, past the hairy parts; otherwise fibers stick in your teeth. She chops the root. If she had the right tool, she’d shred it. She’s sure Lucia La Rotonda shreds celery roots, and they taste better that way. But chopping has to do.
“That’s a pile of junk.” Bini puts his hands behind his head and leans back against the wall behind his bed. “You know Ricci is as wrapped around your little finger as the rest of us.”
“I know nothing of the sort.” Biancaneve throws the diced-up roots into the big pot, the only big pot, which is now on its second task of the day. She used it for the laundry, which hangs from the rafters. Without these rafters, she’d be at a loss. The household is so poorly equipped. The fireplace doesn’t even have andirons. A vision of the brass andirons in her room in Venezia flashes in her head.
“Oh, yeah? Why else do you think he defends your honor?”
Biancaneve laughs. “Maybe because you’re always attacking it.” She sighs. Bini probably isn’t sick at all. He just wants to be alone with her. He’s always trying to corner her. She takes down a long strip of dried boar meat and saws away at it, throwing all her weight into each push and pull of the knife.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m sick of boar stew,” says Bini. “Dried meat can last forever. Don’t you know how to make anything else?”
“I didn’t even know how to make this until Baffi showed me. Sometimes I helped my aunt Agnola, for special dishes. But only sometimes.” Biancaneve looks at her hands. They’re raw and red, as red as Dolce’s fingertips. She shudders. So far this morning she has fed the chickens, gathered the eggs, milked the goats, washed the nightshirts. She still has a pile of mending to do. She needs to sharpen this hateful knife. And Giallino told her to cut a couple of new bottle stoppers. That will keep her busy all day. And there will be more chores tomorrow. She hates them. And she needs them. They keep her from counting the minutes till spring, when Papà returns. She jabs the meat hard.
Bini gets out of bed. He’s already fully dres
sed, thank heaven. He goes out the door. Good. He’s going to use the latrine. She’s already washed out the chamber pot.
The water boils. She throws in the chunks of meat and stirs. They need rice. If they had rice to put the stew over, it would be so much better. But the men don’t grow rice, so they don’t eat rice. The only thing they buy from others is flour. She pulls a garlic bulb off the braided strand that hangs on the wall and smashes the cloves. The sharp smell goes up her nose right to her brain. She sniffs and smiles.
Bini comes up behind her, clumping across the floor. His head is level with her waist. She turns around quickly. “You’re not sick. Go help train the dogs.” Her voice is sharp. She wishes she could step backward, but the fire is right there. It warms her almost too much.
His eyes hold hers fast. “You lie, Neve.”
She shakes her head. “I haven’t lied to you. I haven’t lied to any of you.”
“You say we shouldn’t call her The Wicked One. But you know she’s evil.”
“I do not.”
He smiles. He looks like he almost feels sorry for her. “How come you’re hiding out here, then? If she’s good, if she loves you like a mother should, you’d go back to Venezia.”
Biancaneve lets out a little cry of despair. She didn’t mean to.
“It’s all right. I never had a mother’s love, either. Mine died—which is bad, especially since I didn’t have a father—but other people loved me. So maybe it wasn’t as bad as having a mother who wants to kill you.”
“Bini, people are not just wicked or good. They’re complicated. Haven’t you ever known anyone who sometimes was wonderful and sometimes fell apart?”
He looks at her. “There was this man on Torcello. Venerio. The mirror maker. He grew mean. Horrible. But sometimes he was nice, like he used to be.”
The mirror maker? Biancaneve feels shaky inside. She can’t hear any more of this. “What food do you know how to make, Bini?”
“Me?”
“Surely you watched Baffi and Giallino when they cooked—before I came. And you must have watched other cooks on Torcello. What do you know how to make?”
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