Bitter Greens

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘I’m sorry I could not get here earlier,’ Lucio panted, climbing over the sill. ‘It was all I could do to convince my men to stay another day. And then they insisted on coming hunting with me. I had to lose them in the forest … Why, Margherita, what is wrong?’

  ‘I’m bleeding. She knows. She struck at me during the night.’ Shaking, she lifted away her hands, showing him the red smears on her white camìcia.

  Lucio was by her side in an instant, his arm about her shoulders, his gaze flying from her stricken face to her lap to the stained bed. ‘But … have you never bled before, mia bella bianca?’ he asked gently. ‘It’s natural for a woman to bleed.’

  Margherita shook her head.

  Lucio sat beside her on the bed, pulling her close. ‘You should have started to bleed some time ago. My sisters were thirteen and fourteen when they began, and I have heard of girls being even younger. It is nothing to be afraid of. I know it can hurt and make you feel unwell. My younger sister Alessandra always moans and cries and insists on lying down with a hot stone wrapped in flannel clutched to her belly.’

  She stared at him in utter bafflement.

  ‘You have never heard of a woman’s monthly bleeding before?’ Lucio asked.

  Margherita shook her head, then hesitated. ‘She asks me, every month, whether I bled while she was gone. I … I thought she meant …’ She glanced down at the fresh red welt on her wrist, from the last cut of the rose thorns.

  ‘Why do you do it?’ The words burst out of his mouth. He seized her wrists, holding them upwards so both he and Margherita could stare at her marred skin. ‘Your beautiful white skin, so soft … How can you injure yourself like that?’

  Blood heated her face. ‘You think I do it? No! How could I? I have no knife or razor, nothing I could use to cut myself. No, she does it!’

  ‘She cuts you? The witch? She made such a mess of your wrists?’ Lucio stared at her incredulously.

  ‘For my blood,’ Margherita answered fiercely. ‘That’s why I’m here. She needs my blood.’

  ‘But why?’

  Margherita could not answer. She had said too much already. Fear coiled in her belly like a thick black snake.

  Lucio bent his head and pressed a kiss on the inside of one wrist, and then the other. Then he laid his forehead against her palms. For a moment, they sat quietly, neither moving, then Lucio got up abruptly and moved away.

  ‘Come, let me heat some water for you to bathe in and make yourself fresh.’ He went to fill the bucket with water. ‘Have you eaten anything? You must eat. I would not be at all surprised to find out that’s why you are so late to start bleeding, being kept half-starved the way you were.’

  He busied himself making her clean and comfortable. When she was sitting in bed, in a fresh camìcia and fresh sheets, he made her breakfast and brought it to her to eat in bed. All this time, he barely glanced at her, while she kept her eyes steadily on him. The air between them seemed charged with thunder.

  ‘I brought fresh figs for you today,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to cut one for you?’

  ‘I have never eaten a fig. What does it taste like?’

  ‘Ah, you’ve never lived until you’ve eaten a fig!’ he cried. ‘Here, let me cut you a slice.’

  Deftly, Lucio quartered a fig and brought it to her. She looked at it dubiously. The skin was purplish-green, the seeds inside pink and fleshy. He grinned at her. ‘Go on, try it.’

  Margherita took the soft purple fruit hesitantly, looking down at it, then glancing up at him. He nodded and smiled, so she brought the fig to her mouth and bit it. The fig seemed to explode in her mouth, tasting unlike anything she had ever eaten before. Delicate, perfumed, piquant. Her eyes met his, filled with delight. Greedily, she ate the rest of the fruit, laughing in embarrassment as juice dribbled down her chin. ‘It’s delicious!’

  He did not answer, and she looked up at him in surprise. His eyes were very intent on her mouth. He reached out a gentle finger and rubbed away the juice from the corner. She jerked under his touch and stilled, staring at him with wide eyes. He ran the finger along her soft bottom lip, then leant forward and kissed her lingeringly. Her whole body melted. One arm crept up about his neck, drawing him closer, and her mouth opened beneath his.

  At last, he drew away. ‘I think you have cast a spell on me,’ he whispered, laying his head next to hers on the pillow. ‘I cannot think of anything but you, I cannot sleep for worrying if you are afraid and lonely.’

  ‘I cannot sleep for thinking of you either,’ she whispered back.

  ‘Have you cast a spell on me? Are you the witch?’

  ‘No!’ she cried and pushed him away. He laughed and caught her, drawing her to him and kissing her again. At once, she was back in his arms, kissing him hungrily, pressing her body against his.

  He groaned and drew away. ‘You intoxicate me. I feel drunk when I’m with you, heedless of anything else. Oh, Margherita, will you not climb down the rope with me? I’ll take you with me to Limone. Have you ever been on a boat?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘You’ll love it. We skim over the waves like a bird, the wind in our sails, moving faster even than a galloping horse. In only a few hours, we’ll be far from here. And then I’ll take you home with me to Florence. You’ll be safe there. She’ll never know where you are.’

  ‘Oh, I want to! I wish I could!’

  ‘Why can’t you? It’s safe. I promise you I’ll not drop you.’ He kissed her throat.

  ‘The spell,’ she managed to say.

  All his attention was focused on her breasts, which rose and fell rapidly below the thin fabric of her camìcia. Slowly, he drew the fabric down, following the path of his fingers with soft kisses.

  ‘Your skin is so white, it’s like translucent silk. I can see the blue of your veins through it,’ he murmured. He drew her camìcia lower, revealing the red blotch of her birthmark on her left breast. ‘Ah, the parsley mark,’ he whispered and bent his head to kiss it. Slowly, he laved it with his tongue, then very gently bit it. She gasped and pulled his head closer, and somehow his mouth found her nipple and she gasped again and arched her back.

  He sat up, pushing himself away from her. ‘Please don’t,’ he said harshly.

  She was hurt, anxious, reaching for him. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing! It’s just … don’t you understand how much I’d like to … and when you make sounds like that … and look at me like that … I’d better go.’ He stood up.

  She sat up, clutching the loosened neck of her camìcia to her. ‘Please don’t go.’

  He did not look at her. ‘I must. It’s not right. You’re as innocent as a child. You don’t understand.’ He strode across the room and grasped the rope.

  Margherita flew across the room and flung her arms about him. ‘Lucio! Please!’

  He made a guttural noise deep in his throat and drew her into his arms. For a long moment, they swayed together, kissing desperately, one of his big hands wrenching away her camìcia to find her naked breast, the other sliding down from her waist to cup her bottom. Her golden-red hair fell all about them in wild disarray. He turned and pushed her back against the wall, his hand wrenching up her camìcia. Then his fingers found the moist cleft between her legs. He gasped and shoved his body hard against hers. With his other hand, he struggled to undo his hose. He brought his other hand up to assist, then suddenly gasped and broke away from her. His fingers were all bloody.

  ‘Margherita … mia bella bianca … I can’t. I mustn’t,’ he gasped.

  ‘Lucio,’ she pleaded, not knowing what it was she wanted, just knowing she could not bear for him to go.

  He averted his eyes, grabbing the rope and swinging out the window. ‘I’ll be back, I promise.’ Then he was gone.

  UNBINDING

  The Rock of Manerba, Lake Garda, Italy – July 1599 to April 1600

  The days dragged past.

  Margherita had never been lonelier. She longed for Lucio t
o return, his words making the world seem so much grander than she had ever imagined. She longed for his touch, his kiss. Her body felt different – sensitive and womanly. She paced her room all day, tossed sleeplessly in her bed all night. At dusk, she sat in her window and poured all her longing and desire into her songs, hoping he would somehow hear her and return.

  And he did. About three weeks after he had left, Lucio returned.

  As he climbed the rope up the tower, Margherita hung out the window, smiling at him through her tears, her bronze hair all loose and waving about her body. She did not speak, just held out her arms to him as he reached the windowsill. His mouth found hers. For a long instant, they kissed, then Lucio broke free, clambering into the room, drawing her close.

  ‘It’s not safe for me to kiss you till I’m on solid ground. You make my head spin so much I’m in danger of falling,’ he said. ‘Oh, mia bella bianca, I’ve missed you!’

  ‘And I you.’

  They kissed again, lingeringly.

  ‘I’ve brought you something,’ he said at length, drawing her to sit on his knee. ‘Look.’

  He drew a small golden ring out of his pocket. ‘It’s a type of binding spell. If you wear this ring, it binds you to me, and all other binding spells are broken.’

  ‘It’s a wedding ring,’ she said wonderingly, trying it on her finger.

  He laughed. ‘Even locked away all your life, you still know what a wedding ring is. Girls!’

  ‘My mother wore one.’ Her voice was constricted with pain and love and fear.

  ‘If I could, I would marry you in the cathedral, with all the usual chanting and incense and weeping, but there is no priest and no cathedral in this tower, so this will have to do until I get you to Florence.’

  She nodded her head slowly. He bent his head and kissed her. ‘Can we make promises to each other, as if we were truly married? Can we swear to be true and faithful and love only each other and all those things? Because I’m in such pain, Margherita, I need to have you, I need to know that you’re mine. I’ve been in torment since I first saw you. No, since I first heard you singing from your tower height. Please, mia bella bianca, please let us swear to each other. Love breaks all spells, I know it does. Wear my ring and let me know—’

  She stopped his words with her mouth, cupping both hands about his face. Then she sat back to show him the ring on her finger. ‘I swear it all. Is that good enough? Because I really need you to kiss me again.’

  He kissed her tenderly. ‘I swear—’

  ‘Sshhh,’ she said and lifted his hand to her breast. His breath caught; his hand closed tight. Then he lifted her and carried her to the bed.

  For a night, all was perfect between them. They loved more deeply and passionately than anyone had ever loved before, or so they said to each other, holding each other’s face in their hands, watching each other’s eyes as they moved together in the soft candlelight. Then dawn came, and Lucio stood up, drawing on his clothes, saying, ‘Come, my darling, let’s go home.’

  Margherita could not go.

  Lucio begged her, enticed her, ordered her. It made no difference. She would not take one step towards the window. ‘I can’t, I can’t,’ she said helplessly, while he raged and shouted and even wept. And when he seized her in his arms and dragged her towards the window, she cried out in agony and fell to the floor.

  ‘I can’t stay. I have to go,’ he told her angrily. ‘Don’t you understand? I have already stayed far too long. This trip was meant to show my uncle how mature and responsible I am. He will think me a shiftless fool, to take a month to get a few lemons. He will never understand. I meant to take you with me, to have you dazzle him with your beauty and your voice, to show him I was serious about my intentions towards you. The men suspect I’ve been sneaking off to visit a woman. They’ll tell him. He’ll think it just a boyish affair. Margherita, please, I beg of you. I need you to come with me!’

  But she could not.

  After he had left, she wept inconsolably all day. The sun sank and the tower room grew dark. She built up the fire and began to make herself a desultory meal, tears occasionally trickling down her face as another memory assaulted her. Then she sat on her windowsill to eat.

  The moon was rising. It was almost full.

  Panic twisted her gut. She stood up, looking around the tower room, seeing the many signs that Lucio had been there. The golden ring upon her finger. The cornucopia of food. The sheets, stained with his seed. The rope, still knotted to the hook. The dagger he had insisted she keep, to defend herself if needed.

  Every time La Strega came, she was angry if even a candlestick was an inch out of place. Her tawny lion’s eyes saw everything.

  Margherita began to clean frantically. She washed the sheets, though it hurt her to wash away Lucio’s smell. She unknotted the rope, her last and only chance to escape, and coiled it, sobbing with despair. She tried to hide it under the bed, but kept imagining La Strega finding it. Then there was the problem of the food. Strange sacks, different containers, food she had never had before. She could fling it down the latrine, but perhaps La Strega would see it all smashed on the rocks below.

  Eventually, Margherita slowly and laboriously chipped away the makeshift concrete around the trapdoor and opened it once more. The smell that rolled up from the depths of the tower made her gag. It smelt of death and abandonment. But she lit a candle and went down the steps again and again, carrying sacks of food to hide on the floor below. When the last sack was hidden, she sat for a while on the edge of the trapdoor, her limbs trembling with exhaustion, her stomach roiling with nausea. She was filled with a black fatalism. Her chance to escape had come, yet she had failed to break free of the binding spell the witch had placed upon her soul. She had been given love, passion, freedom, a future … yet even the magic of Lucio’s love for her had not been enough.

  Margherita would stay in the tower till she died.

  La Strega came with the rising of the full moon, as always. She seemed to sense at once that something was wrong, standing on the windowsill and looking all around the tower room with frowning eyes. Margherita kept her eyes down and her face meek.

  ‘Did you miss me, Petrosinella?’ La Strega asked.

  ‘Yes, of course … Mama,’ Margherita replied, her face feeling too hot, her body too large.

  ‘Mama? That is not like you, Petrosinella, to be so sweet.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she cried, twisting her hands together in anxiety.

  ‘What is wrong?’ La Strega’s voice was sharp.

  ‘Nothing! It’s just … I’ve been lonely. This month seemed so long. The sun does not set till so late in summer and rises so early, the days seem to last forever. I’m sorry, I do not mean to complain. I’m just pleased to see you. Will you not sit?’ Margherita gabbled.

  ‘I’m hungry. Let us bring up the food and you can cook something for me. Don’t you wish to know what present I’ve brought you?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Margherita said blankly, then assumed an expression of eager interest. ‘Oh, yes! I’ve been so good! What have you brought?’

  La Strega looked around the tower. It was immaculate. All the sacks and jars were in perfect symmetrical alignment. The bed was without a wrinkle. Yet still she frowned.

  Margherita clasped her hands together like a little girl and did her best to look eager, sweet and shy.

  ‘I have brought you sweetmeats and a new songbook,’ La Strega said slowly, her eyes on Margherita’s face.

  ‘Oh! Thank you!’ A month ago, Margherita would indeed have been excited and grateful, but Lucio had exploded the confines of her life like a lit barrel of gunpowder. She fixed her eyes on La Strega’s face and smiled till her cheeks began to hurt. Then, she busied herself knotting the rope La Strega had brought around the hook and throwing it down to Magli, chattering as artlessly as a child till at last La Strega stopped scrutinising her face so closely and seemed to relax. They ate a simple meal, then Margherita began to draw water for La
Strega’s bath. Her heart felt heavy and muffled in her chest, pounding too insistently. She wondered how she could possibly bear the witch’s hands upon her tonight, now that she knew what true love was.

  When La Strega relaxed in her warm bath, the rose petals floating in the scented water, Margherita silently offered her scarred wrist. ‘Have you bled this month?’ La Strega asked.

  ‘No,’ Margherita lied.

  La Strega nodded, satisfied, and gashed the rose thorns across Margherita’s thin blue veins.

  The summer slowly faded into autumn, the days growing shorter, the moon in its waxing and waning reflecting the points of high tension in Margherita’s life and the long lax days when nothing at all happened.

  In November, Lucio surprised her by returning.

  ‘I had to see you again, I had to know you were all right,’ he said at high speed, stepping over the windowsill. ‘You look well, you look beautiful! Not nearly so skinny. I persuaded my uncle I should come back for the olive harvest, that maybe mountain olives would taste better than olives from the plains.’ As he spoke, he was undoing his sword belt and flinging it on the ground, wrenching his shirt over his head. ‘Mia bella bianca! Is all well?’

  ‘Yes, now that you are here,’ she replied, springing forward into his arms. ‘I thought you’d never come again! I was afraid—’

  ‘Stop talking,’ Lucio ordered, as if he was not the one who never stopped talking. He kissed her as if he wanted to swallow her whole. ‘Oh, sweetheart! I missed you!’

  ‘Yes!’ Margherita unknotted her hair from her snood, drew her loose gown over her head and helped him drag down his hose. They fell onto the bed, laughing, burrowing through each other’s clothes.

  Later, satiated, they lay in each other’s arms, talking, telling each other all that had happened in the months they had been apart. Lucio stayed all night and most of the next day. Once again, he begged Margherita to find the courage to leave the tower. Once again, Margherita was unable to.