Or was it hopeless?
A month after Piero found the cedar box, Giulia finally scraped up the courage to make her way to Maestro Bruni’s rooms. He’d created the horoscope—perhaps he remembered it well enough to re-create it. “I can pay you,” she told him, offering her mother’s coins. But he shook his head.
“I’m sorry, child. I’m not the astrologer your mother commissioned.” He was a small man, thin as a wire, with soft brown eyes and a hooked nose that reminded her of a bird’s beak. She liked his gentle manner, and the serious way he listened to her. “I came into the Count’s employ only two years ago.”
“There’s this.” She held out the fragment. “Doesn’t it help?”
He glanced at the symbols, then looked at the side with the writing. He frowned. “This is not a happy prediction, my dear. It says—” He seemed to catch himself. “That your stars are not favorable for marriage.”
“They aren’t? But why not?”
“I don’t know, my dear. It’s just a fragment.”
“But…Mama wanted me to marry.” Giulia’s eyes filled with tears. “She said I had to find a husband to protect me. She said it was the most important thing of all. She said…she said I must never end up like her, living in a little room at the bottom of a big house, with a child who has no father.”
“Oh, my dear.” Maestro Bruni’s brow creased with sympathy. “Such predictions are possibilities, not certainties. What’s written on that bit of paper doesn’t have to happen.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Our lives are written in the skies of our birth. But God gave us free will. That means we can resist the influence of our stars, and shape our lives through our own choices. Suppose…suppose your birth horoscope showed there was danger to you of death by drowning. You could stay away from water, from boats—anything that might cause you to drown. Or suppose, as in your case, your stars say it will be difficult for you to marry. If you do everything you can to look for a husband, rather than waiting for him, as most girls do, perhaps you will marry after all. Do you see?”
“I…I think so.”
“There may have been predictions in the original chart to balance this one.” Maestro Bruni smiled. “Would you like to find out? Shall I cast you a new horoscope?”
“Oh, sir! Would you?”
“Indeed I would. And put away your coins, my dear, I won’t take even a penny. When were you born?”
“In March, sir. I’m seven.”
“In Pisces, then, in…hmmm…1470. And the day and hour?”
Giulia opened her mouth to reply. Her mother had always celebrated her name day in March. But the day and the hour…
“I don’t know,” she said in a small voice.
“Did your mother never tell you?”
Had she? Giulia couldn’t remember. She shook her head.
“Then I’m sorry.” He sounded genuinely regretful. “Without at least the day of your birth, there’s nothing I can do.”
He held out the fragment. Giulia took it, trying not to cry.
“Don’t look so sad, child. Most people never know their stars. Others do, and pay no heed to the warnings written there. One can live a good life without a horoscope, and a bad life with one. Better the former than the latter, don’t you think?”
“Thank you, sir.” Giulia curtsied. “For your time.”
“Come back and visit me if you remember more.” He smiled. “Even if you don’t, eh?”
Giulia never did remember more. But she had returned to Maestro’s rooms whenever she could slip away. He’d been kind to her, and unlike the servants’ quarters, his cluttered study held no painful memories of her mother. She was too young, then, to question why he would welcome her; it was only as she grew older that she began to understand how lonely he was, for he was unmarried, just as her horoscope predicted she would be, and his family was far away in the city of Vicenza.
He indulged her curiosity about his instruments and books. As she proved how quickly she could learn, what had been a game became something more. He taught her to read and write, both in Italian and in the practical Latin of scholars and the Church. He let her delve into his books on history and philosophy and geography. She began showing him her drawings, which he praised as only her mother ever had before; it was he who gave her the leather-covered sketchbook that she carried always in her belt-pouch. By the time she turned twelve, he’d come to rely on her as a kind of secretary, to copy out his scribbled interpretations of the elaborate horoscopes he created for the Borromeo family: natal horoscopes for the birth of children, electional horoscopes to determine the proper times for important events, horary horoscopes to answer important questions.
The visits to Maestro fed Giulia’s hunger for knowledge. But also, they were a refuge—from the tedium of the sewing room, from Piero’s bullying and Clara’s malice, from her uneasy position in the household, excluded from the upstairs world because of her bastardy, isolated within the downstairs world for the same reason. By long practice, she was able to ignore the other servants’ coldness and occasional mockery—making fun of her charcoal-stained fingers, mincing along behind her with their noses in the air and pinched expressions on their faces, to show they thought she put on airs. But she could not always fully armor herself against the hurt and the anger. It was good to have a place where she was not only accepted, but valued. Even, perhaps, loved.
“You’re as clever as a boy, my dear,” Maestro sometimes told her. “I don’t know what God was thinking, to give such an intellect to a girl.”
Giulia knew he didn’t mean the words to sting. But they did. A boy who could read and write could do so many things—even if he were a servant, even if he were a bastard. But a girl…no matter how clever a girl was, no matter how full of learning she stuffed her head, all a girl could do was to get married and have children.
And according to her horoscope, Giulia might not even be able to do that.
Shaking off thoughts of the past, Giulia knocked at Maestro’s door, then, as always, slipped inside without waiting for a response.
Maestro’s study was as familiar to her as any room in the palazzo, with its red marble floor and its smell of dust, leather-bound books, and incense. Pedestals under the windows supported an armillary sphere and a celestial globe; alcoves along the inner wall held books and astrological instruments. Another wall was almost entirely covered by a tapestry depicting the universe—Earth at the center, surrounded by the spheres of the sun, the moon, the planets, and the higher spheres of the heavens. Angels with golden wings ringed the outermost sphere, where God sat on His throne, His hand outstretched to show that it was by His will the cosmos moved.
Maestro was sitting at his cluttered desk. He half-rose when he saw Giulia, his welcoming smile disappearing.
“Merciful saints, Giulia! What happened to your face?”
“It was an accident.” Giulia raised her hand to her cheek, still throbbing from the Countess’s blows. “It doesn’t matter. But Maestro, the Countess is sending me to Padua to be a nun. I must leave tomorrow.”
“Ah.” Maestro sat down again.
“Did you…did you know?”
“No. But change is afoot in this house. I fear none of us will escape it.”
“I don’t want to be a nun.” Just saying it made Giulia breathless. “I don’t mind if she sends me away—just not to a convent. Could you talk to her? Please?”
“Me?” Maestro drew back. “My dear, she would not hear me. I had the Count’s favor, but not hers. Between you and me, I’ve begun looking for a new patron.”
“But if you knew someone who would give me a position—there’s your cousin in Vicenza, perhaps his household needs a seamstress—”
“No, no, no. I care nothing for the Countess’s displeasure, but I can’t make that choice for my cousin.” Maestro shook his head. “I’m sorry, Giulia. For your sake, I wish I were a man of influence, but I am not.”
He is kind, Giulia thought.
But not brave. She hadn’t really expected he could help, but she’d had to ask, just to make sure all other roads were barred to her.
“Ah, Giulia, how I will miss you. A pox upon that woman and her stupid pride.”
Giulia felt her throat tighten. She would miss him too, this gentle man whom she loved almost as a father. She’d miss him terribly. But she couldn’t let herself be distracted by that now.
“Maestro, do you remember telling me about your friend, the astrologer who makes talismans? Maestro Bastone, wasn’t it?”
“Barbaro. Francisco Barbaro. My former friend, Giulia, as you know well.”
“Didn’t you say he lived in Porta Nuova, on Via…Via…”
“Via Sette Coltelli in Porta Orientale.” Maestro caught himself. “Giulia. What are you up to?”
“I can’t be a nun, Maestro. I have to do something.”
“What, get Barbaro to make you a talisman to save you from the convent? Sorcery is a sin, Giulia, an invention of the devil, not just for those who practice it but for those who seek it.”
“It’d just be one talisman. And I’d never want another.”
“One talisman or a hundred, it’s all the same. My dear, this is not the way for you.”
“But I can’t think of anything else! You can’t help me—I can’t run away—I’ve no one to take me in. I don’t want to wind up a beggar or…or a whore, I don’t want to be called a thief because I stole my own self and cheated the Countess of her cruelty!” She caught her breath in a sob. “If this…sorcerer can help me—”
“Giulia.” Maestro got to his feet. He was as stern as Giulia had ever seen him. “You wouldn’t even know about Barbaro had you not found his letter hidden in that book years ago. I never would have told you. I said as much as I did only to make clear to you the evil of the path he chose.”
“But Maestro—”
“I would like to claim that it was he who corrupted me.” Maestro raised his voice to carry over hers. “But I cannot. He and I succumbed together as apprentices, and continued as astrologers. For me, the small magics that were our first passion were enough, but he was always drawn to darker things. When he began to study the daemonic spirits, crafting incantations to summon them and rituals to bind them, I saw that we were meddling with powers God does not mean us to possess. In fear of damnation, I renounced all magic and left the house we shared. He sent me that letter, cursing me for what he called my betrayal. As corrupt as he was when I left him, I cannot imagine the depth of his depravity now. I forbid you to go to him. By the duty you owe me as your tutor, I forbid it.”
For a moment Giulia held his gaze. Then she bowed her head, as if in defeat. “Yes, Maestro.”
“Good girl.”
She felt wretched to deceive him. But like the Countess, he had left her no choice. In her mind, as she often did, she heard her mother’s voice: In the end, the only person you can rely on is yourself.
“You should have presents to go away with.” Maestro left his desk and began to move around the room, reaching up to shelves, opening chests. “A supply of paper, for your drawing. A quill and an inkpot—with a cap, so you won’t have to worry about spills. Ink powder that you can mix as you need. And Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I know how you love them.”
“Oh, Maestro, thank you. But I don’t know if they’ll let me keep such things.”
“We shall hope they will. Ah, Giulia. If you were a boy, I’d have made you my apprentice long ago.”
Giulia looked at him—his clothes always a little shabby, his fingers always stained with ink, his papers always in disarray, his mind always on his books or in the stars. Normally she didn’t notice, but just now she could see it clearly: He’s getting old. A great surge of grief and affection rose up in her. She stepped forward and flung her arms around his neck.
“I’ll never forget you,” she whispered fiercely. “Thank you for your kindness, for everything you’ve taught me.”
“There, there.” He patted her awkwardly on the back. “God keep you safe, my dearest girl. Remember that in Milan, there is one who loves you.”
“I love you too.” She stepped away. “Good-bye, Maestro.”
She carried his gifts up to the attic, then pried up the loose floorboard that hid her mother’s topaz necklace and pouch of coins. All the while, she repeated the address Maestro had given her, so she would not forget: Maestro Francisco Barbaro. Via Sette Coltelli. Porta Orientale.
God, if this is a sin, forgive me. But I don’t know what else to do.
CHAPTER 3
The Hour of Venus
The afternoon was almost gone by the time Giulia reached the sorcerer’s house.
She’d known where Porta Orientale was, at least in theory—Maestro had showed her plans of Milan, with its six neighborhoods, or portes, arranged like pie slices around the central piazza that housed the Duomo, the city’s vast cathedral. But finding her way through the streets was not the same as poring over maps. She’d quickly become lost, and the conflicting directions she had begged from passersby had taken her far out of her way. She’d begun to worry that she would still be wandering the city when night fell, at the mercy of cutpurses or worse.
But finally, like a miracle, there it was—a pillar painted with seven stilettos, marking the entrance to the Via Sette Coltelli, the Street of Seven Knives.
The sorcerer’s house was protected by a stucco wall. An iron gate allowed glimpses of a garden full of overgrown yews and cypresses, through whose twisted branches Giulia could just see the house itself. Perhaps because of all the heavy vegetation, the garden seemed much darker than the avenue outside, as if night had already fallen there. A bell rope hung beside the gate.
Giulia had wondered what a sorcerer’s home might look like. This gloomy place fulfilled all her expectations.
For just a moment, the fear she’d fought as she trudged the city rose up and overwhelmed her, and Maestro’s words of warning sounded in her mind. She pushed them away. I’ve come this far. I cannot turn back.
She drew a deep breath. She stepped forward and rang the bell.
Clang. The sound echoed back into the shadowed garden. For a long moment nothing happened. Then she heard a creak, as of a door opening, and saw someone coming toward her—a woman, bent with age, her head wrapped in a kerchief. The woman shuffled up to the gates and peered through the bars.
“What d’you want?”
“I’ve come…” Giulia cleared her throat. “I’ve come to see Maestro Francisco Barbaro, the sor—the astrologer. It’s urgent.”
“It always is. Can you pay?”
“Yes.”
The crone lifted the bar that secured the gates. She dragged at one of them, pulling it back a little way. “Well?” Impatiently, she beckoned. “Don’t be all day.”
Giulia slipped through the narrow gap. The crone heaved the gate closed and reset the bar, then led the way along the wide stone path that split the tangled garden, beneath the dimness of the trees. She hurried Giulia through the house’s great oaken door and down a magnificent candle-lit corridor whose elaborate frescos and polished marble were the very opposite of the garden’s neglect. An enormous, high-ceilinged room lay at the corridor’s end.
“Wait here,” the crone instructed, pointing to a spot by the door. “I’ll see if he’ll receive you. He may not. He doesn’t see everyone.”
She hurried toward the room’s other side, where a curtain hung across an opening.
“Tell him Maestro Carlo Bruni gave me his name,” Giulia called after her. “They were friends once.”
The old woman gave no sign that she had heard. She lifted the curtain and vanished.
The blue gray twilight admitted by the windows did little to relieve the chamber’s gloom. Her back against the door, her teeth chattering with chill and fright, Giulia could almost imagine that the old woman had been a ghost, that there were no living beings in this place besides herself. For courage, she rested her hand on her mother’s topaz necklace
, hidden under the neck of her gown.
The curtain swept aside. A man came through, clad in a flowing robe and carrying a branch of candles.
“You say you come from Carlo Bruni, girl?”
Giulia had to try twice to find her voice. “Yes, sir.”
“Who are you?” The sorcerer approached, holding up the candles. “Why has he sent you?”
“My name is Giulia, sir. I’m his pupil.”
“His pupil?” He sounded skeptical.
“Yes, sir. And he didn’t send me. That is, he told me your name…but I’m here…I’m here on my own.”
“Ah.”
Was it disappointment in his voice? He set the candles on a table and began to move around the room, lighting more candles in sconces on the walls. Giulia couldn’t tell how he accomplished this—it looked as if the flame sprang directly from his fingers. The rising illumination revealed the magnificent zodiac wheel inlaid upon the marble floor, showing the twelve signs, their associated houses, and their ruling planets. As the candle flames flared up, points of light seemed to kindle on the ceiling as well. With astonishment, Giulia recognized the zodiac constellations, arranged in a ring that exactly matched the circle on the floor. Awed, she gazed upward. Scorpio glittered directly overhead; to the left was Pisces, under which she had been born.
“Carlo Bruni and I were friends, years ago.”
The sorcerer stood before her. She had imagined someone crabbed and stooped, made ugly by his outlaw pursuits, but this man was well-formed and straight, with a handsome face and large, calm eyes of crystalline blue. The silk of his robe was a deeper blue. His hair was entirely covered by a close-fitting cap that appeared, strangely, to be made of polished metal.
“The best of friends,” he continued. “Did he tell you that?”
Giulia nodded. She’d assumed that Maestro and the sorcerer were of an age, but this man looked at least twenty years younger. She felt a thrill of fear. If he can light candles with his fingers and make stars shine on his ceiling, what else can he do?
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