by Deva Fagan
Ubaldo roared and raised his fist again as Coso and Cristo hooted with laughter. Allessandra had me behind her by then. “Now, my dear, would you like a nut cake? The local baker claims to make the best in all the lands, and you know how you love them.” She held out the round brown sweet to Ubaldo, smiling more serenely than I could have, with that great gilded fist hovering so close.
“And more wine?” she continued, taking up the wineskin in her other hand. “You’ve worked so hard today, you deserve to enjoy yourself. Never mind the girl, she’s not worth your trouble.”
“Bah!” Ubaldo snatched the cake and wineskin from her hands, still glowering. “Just keep her out of my way. Stupid, clumsy brat.” He sat back and munched on the cake.
Allessandra squeezed my hand warningly.
“Ah, give us some,” Coso said. “I love a good nut cake.”
“You’ll buy your own,” said Ubaldo. “I’m the leader of this company. All of you remember that.”
“Pass the wine, then, at least,” said Cristo.
Ubaldo tossed back the last bite of the cake, then squirted a copious amount of wine into his mouth. Dribbles of red ran through his curling beard and down his front. “Ah!” He smacked his lips and threw the nearly empty skin to Cristo. “There you go, boys. I’m done. The rest is yours.”
Coso and Cristo fell to bickering over the dregs, and eventually the three men departed altogether, in search of an alehouse. Allessandra kept tight hold of my wrist all this time.
She watched the men until they disappeared in the gloom of evening across the greensward. Then she turned dark, troubled eyes on me at last. She reached out and brushed a finger over my tender lip, a crease marring the lovely white skin between her brows. “Ubaldo?”
“He stole them!” My words burst out like a summer storm, carrying with them all the rage and frustration that had been thundering inside since Ubaldo struck me. “He took all the coins Father earned. He stole them, just as he stole Franca!” I brushed a hand across my eyes, feeling the pricking of tears.
“Shush,” she warned. “If you haven’t learned by now not to accuse him of such things, you’re not as clever as I thought. Now, let me find a poultice for that lip, or it will be a pretty sight tomorrow. It’s already bruising a bit.” She looked past me to the wagon, where Father was still hard at work.
“He won’t notice, even if it does bruise,” I said bitterly. I wiped my eyes again.
Her gaze flicked back to me. She slipped her arm around my shoulders. “How long has it been since you lost your mother?”
“Two years, come the Feast of Saint Lucia.” That was when I’d gotten the dress with the red ribbons. I remembered Mother stitching them on carefully. How excited I had been, wheedling for a chance to wear it early, getting underfoot and hanging about at her elbow until she’d sent me away so that she might finish the work before the celebration.
“It must be hard. You’re no more than a girl. But you’ve taken good care of your father.”
I shrugged. “He loves me very much, I know that. But he doesn’t take heed of things. Not like a normal father might. I’ve had to manage our money, our food, everything.” My brittle control cracked. Everything had gone so horribly wrong. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t supposed to do this. How could the Saints have taken my mother away? Didn’t they know how much we—I—needed her?
The words came tumbling out, the whole story of our fall from wealth and esteem to poverty and disgrace. Allessandra listened. With my eyes clogged by tears, I could almost imagine it was my mother there, quiet and serene and wise. Her arm steadied my trembling shoulders. Cool fingers brushed my hand, pressing a handkerchief into my palm.
When I had finished, I sat staring into the fire. My cheeks were hot from the flames, or shame, or anger, I couldn’t tell which. After some time had passed, Allessandra spoke.
“The world is a hard place. You’ve seen the folk who come to me, seeking answers, seeking sense. Wanting to know that some bright future is before them.”
“And it isn’t,” I said bleakly. “That’s just a lie we make up, to get their coin to fill our own bellies. Or Ubaldo’s, rather.”
“Whether or not there is magic, or fairies, or trolls, or dragons in the world, there is love. You’ve done much already out of love for your father. You will go far with that love, and you will make a better life for yourself.”
“You see it, with your All-Knowing eyes?” I said sarcastically.
“I know it, and it is true. But you must be wary. Do not stay with Ubaldo any longer than you need. He is an evil man.”
“You’re here,” I pointed out.
“Only as long as I must be.”
“Alle,” I said, emboldened by the confessional tone of our talk, “how did you come to this life? Were you born to it?” I had often wondered. Allessandra was still a young woman, perhaps a dozen years older than myself.
Her laugh was lovely as always, but it held a bitter edge, like sour-orange jam. “I was born in the East, in a beautiful city with pigeons in the plaza who would peck the bread crusts in my hand. I had a father too, back then.”
“What happened?”
“A story not unlike your own. Except that when we fell into poverty, my father sold me to a traveling troupe of entertainers.”
My mouth gaped as I imagined such a thing. “That’s horrible! How could he?”
She shook her head. “I don’t even know that much, for he never said good-bye. I don’t know who I hate more, my father for abandoning me, or Ubaldo for . . .”
She trailed off. I said nothing but thanked the Saints that at least I knew Papa loved me, for all his other faults.
“But that’s in the past. I’ve learned much since then, and I’ve a few tricks up my sleeve.” She reached into the voluminous folds of her robe and extricated a wrinkled dried leaf of a strange silvery color. She held it out, grinning. “Dreamwell. A leaf of that, and even a man of Ubaldo’s size will be asleep within the hour. He’ll be passed out across the bar at the alehouse by now.”
“How—”
“Slipped into the center of the nut cake. My special spice. He never noticed it, with the honey and cinnamon to cover the taste. But I can’t use it every day. It would kill him.”
“And that would be a bad thing?”
She smiled. “Perhaps not for the world. But I do not want that stain on my soul. For now, I know enough to get by with my wits and a bit of dreamwell here and there. You must do the same. If I could—” Whatever she had been going to say, apparently she thought better of it. “You must learn to outsmart him,” she said. “Learn to slip a few coins into a secret pocket. I’ll show you how to sew one into your gown. You keep those coins, for you and your father. When you have enough, you buy a donkey and you get away from Ubaldo. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
THE DAYS PASSED QUICKLY. I continued to hate Ubaldo and to despise Coso and Cristo for their sycophantic admiration of him. But I enjoyed my work, and even better was the clink of the coins in my secret purse. Every pair of shoes Father made fed that purse a penny, as did every one of my ghostly manifestations. More than that, and Ubaldo would have noticed. But the dribs and drabs I could ferret away. I hid the purse among the leather, rolled up in a rich brown hide that Father never used.
I earned a few more bruises from Ubaldo before I grew quick enough to evade them, and to recognize his foulest moods and stay clear during them. I wondered how many Allessandra had suffered when she first joined the troupe. Or suffered yet. More than once, I caught her swabbing white grease over her neck to cover a suspicious red-purple mark. At least I could avoid Ubaldo at night, cuddled in my blanket under the wagon, near Father. But Allessandra had to endure his foul moods and temper even then, and perhaps far worse than I could imagine.
Nevertheless, she was always perfectly serene when we went about our work. She blithely took any fool with guilders and fed him her beautiful lies. I did not mind it so much when it was
fat merchants, but I did have a few sleepless nights after we’d told a half-starved young fellow that he would become a great minstrel and turn his songs into gold.
“Songs into gold?” I said, after that one. “I told you he had a lute player’s calluses, not that he was an alchemist!”
“He just needed a bit of encouragement,” Allessandra said, unruffled. “You heard him speak. Can you tell me you don’t think that voice will earn him gold? That guilder he paid was the best coin he ever spent.”
“It looked as if he’d have done better to spend it on a good meal, not our lies.”
“Now then, child, have some respect for our craft. A meal will feed him for a day, but the hope we gave him, that will last for years.”
And so it went. Before I knew it, my Saint’s Day had come and gone, and I was a year older. Surreptitiously, I began to price donkeys and to estimate how far we could get if we fled while the men were off in an alehouse. We could leave now, if only I sold the doge’s chain. But I knew I could get barely a fraction of its worth, ragtag as I was. Or, worse, such a treasure as that might mark me a thief in some eyes.
I couldn’t do it. That chain was the greatest acknowledgment Father had ever received. Now it was all he had left. If I sold the chain to be melted down, divided up, it would be as if that skill had been no more real than Father’s fairies. And it had been real!
It could still return too. We could go back to Valenzia, Father triumphantly attired in the finest silks, wearing a fabulous pair of his own boots, with this gold necklace heavy upon his breast. Our patrons would return, bearing gifts and clamoring for Father to create new boots, shoes, and slippers. Nothing could make me abandon that dream, not even Ubaldo.
He was in a particularly black mood today. His morning show had been heckled by a crowd of young noblemen, and when he’d confronted them, they had set their men on him. It was rare to see Ubaldo cut or even bruised. Now he was a mess of darkening flesh, and one eye had swollen shut, giving him an even fiercer appearance than normal. Bad as they looked, these injuries were only a pale reflection of the fury inside. I had already suffered a particularly nasty wallop after I put thyme in the soup rather than oregano. Even Coso and Cristo had retreated to the local alehouse.
I bundled Father up into the wagon to work, making him promise to stay out of Ubaldo’s way. Allessandra tried to keep her distance too, but Ubaldo demanded that she wait on him as he lounged by the campfire, tossing knives at a nearby sapling that was quickly turning to splinters. Ubaldo had already finished a skin of wine. Now he was rapidly working his way through another, becoming more ill-tempered as he went. Allessandra sent me off to fetch nut cakes, hoping they would divert him from the wine, at least for a time. “A bit of my secret spice, then he’ll be fast asleep, and we’ll have some peace and no broken bones,” she’d said.
As I returned with my basket of sweets and heard the angry bellows, my feet slowed of their own accord. Even nut cakes could not soothe that temper. Why risk going any nearer? I might as well confront a bear in its den. Then I heard Allessandra’s cry.
When I ran out of the shadows into the dancing light of the campfire, I saw her crumpled on the earth. Ubaldo stood over her, calling her terrible names I didn’t even know the meaning of—and I had heard a fair bit by then. Something glittered in the firelight. He held a dagger. By the Saints, no, he was going to kill her! I hurtled into him, trying to push him away from her. This was as effective as a bird throwing itself into the side of a bear, but it did startle him enough that he dropped the dagger. With another roar, he brought his great fist sweeping down at me. The nut cakes flew in every direction. I fell back beside Allessandra. She moaned weakly. Ubaldo had clipped my chin with the blow. I looked up, dazed, expecting to see him looming over me. But he wasn’t there.
Blearily I looked around. Ubaldo had staggered a few steps away and was staring at something on the ground. He stooped. I grew cold. It was the dagger, and he was going to kill us both.
But what he picked up from the grass glimmered gold, not silver.
“That’s mine!” I croaked, some part of my brain still fighting, still thinking I could beat him with pure energy and rage.
“So you’ve been holding out on me, have you?” His voice was dangerously quiet. “I thought as much. I could tell you were a little rat. This is a fine thing, must have come from a king.”
“A doge,” I corrected him. “It belongs to my father. He is the Master Shoemaker of Valenzia.”
“Well, we can all see he’s that no longer,” Ubaldo said. “So as that’s the way of things, I’ll keep this.”
“No!” I started to push myself up, ignoring the dizziness, but a nearby moan gave me pause. “Saints’ shadows!” I hissed, seeing Allessandra’s bloodied face. She looked like a demon from the stained-glass depictions of the seven Hells I’d seen in the cathedral.
As Ubaldo walked past, he spat on the grass near Allessandra. “And you. You knew about this; I can see it in your eyes. Just be glad I didn’t break your legs this time.”
Ubaldo tramped off, leaving Allessandra and me by the campfire. I mopped the blood from her face as best I could. It streamed from her nose. I hoped it looked worse than it was. She smiled weakly up at me, covering my bloody hand with her own. “I’m sorry about the chain. Truly.”
“At least it put him in a good mood,” I said, gently pulling free of her grip. “He’s cheerful as a jester now.”
“If he weren’t, I would probably be dead.” Allessandra pushed herself up, wincing.
“Here,” I said, cradling her shoulders. “Lean on me.”
“But you’ve lost your chain.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be getting it back. I swear by Saint Fortunata on that. And Saint Ubaldo too, for that matter.” I grimaced, dabbing at the blood that would not stop flowing from her battered nose. I feared Ubaldo had broken it.
Allessandra drew away and looked at me seriously. “Fortunata, child, thank you for trying to help me. He would have killed me. You remember what I told you, about getting away from him. Promise me you will do that.”
“You’re getting blood on your robes,” I said. “Here, press that to your nose.”
She took the handkerchief, but her eyes remained fast on mine. “Promise me.”
“I promise,” I said. Once I get Father’s chain back, I added silently.
She sank back down then and let me finish washing the blood from her face. I collected the fallen nut cakes and gave her one, but she only nibbled at it. She kept one hand tightly clenched on a lump under her skirt: her own secret hidden pouch.
I left her there, to take Father one of the nut cakes. “What was the shouting?” he asked.
“Just Ubaldo. As usual.”
“That man, he’s a bad one,” he said, taking off his spectacles and wiping them. He squinted at me. “Are you all right, Nata?”
“Yes, Papa,” I said. But when he reached out to hug me, I crumpled against him. I clung there as he stroked my hair and hummed an old song Mother had sung years ago, until at last my belly unclenched and I fell asleep.
CHAPTER
4
UBALDO’S BELLOWS woke me before dawn. “That harridan!” he thundered. “That ungrateful witch! Where is she?”
Allessandra was gone. We searched the blue wagon, we searched every shop in town. All the while, Ubaldo continued to boil like an untended pot, frothing and fuming. He lashed out at anyone who got near enough. I took Father with me to walk along the bridle path that looped around to the west, through a wooded area twisted with bramble. Father had work to do, but better he not be left alone with Ubaldo in this state.
We met a single traveler, a cleric on donkey-back, on his way to the great cathedral of Sirenza. He had seen no one of Allessandra’s description.
“I hope Mistress Allessandra is all right,” Father said, as the cleric trundled on ahead of us.
I didn’t know what to think. Had she left? Fear shriveled my nerves, chased
fast by anger. I tried to quash them. Allessandra wouldn’t have abandoned me here with Ubaldo. “Maybe she went on a walk, to get away from Ubaldo for a little while.”
“He’s a bad one,” Father said, as he had last night. “Do you suppose, Nata, that we should leave?”
Such initiative from my father boggled me for a moment, but I collected my wits and shook my head. “We will leave, Papa, but not yet. We need a donkey to pull our wagon. And Ubaldo has—” I decided not to mention the gold chain. Father hadn’t paid it much heed before this; he’d probably forgotten it even existed. But if I told him Ubaldo had it and that was why we were staying, who knew what Father might do. “Ubaldo has never treated you poorly, has he, Papa?”
Father shook his head. He was still frowning at me. “But, Nata, you—”
“I’ll be quite all right, Papa, just you see.” I took his hand and squeezed it. Father smiled his gentle smile, and my heart warmed despite my fears.
“Nata, look there,” he said, squinting past me.
There was a tiny scrap of bright blue fabric caught in the thorns of a bramble bush at the side of the narrow track. I pulled it loose and held it in a shaft of sunlight. It glittered where a small sequin caught the light. It was Allessandra’s, I had no doubt.
“I hope she gets far away from here,” Father said, his mellow voice more firm than usual.
The blows I’d suffered at Ubaldo’s hand were nothing to the pain I felt then. Allessandra had abandoned me. I steadied myself against the bole of a nearby tree. I was alone. Again. My future loomed darker and bleaker than ever before, and I had no Alle there to pat my shoulder and teach me how to survive. When I drew my breath, it caught in my clogged throat. Father blinked at me. “Nata?”
I pushed myself away from the tree. Saints, help me, I couldn’t let Father see how terrified I was. I should have known it was up to me, only me, to keep us together and safe. Allessandra had been kind, very kind, during our time together. But in the end, she had looked out for herself. I would have to do the same.
