Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
PART One
CHAPTER One
CHAPTER Two
CHAPTER Three
CHAPTER Four
CHAPTER Five
CHAPTER Six
CHAPTER Seven
CHAPTER Eight
CHAPTER Nine
CHAPTER Ten
CHAPTER Eleven
CHAPTER Twelve
PART Two
CHAPTER Thirteen
CHAPTER Fourteen
CHAPTER Fifteen
CHAPTER Sixteen
CHAPTER Seventeen
CHAPTER Eighteen
CHAPTER Nineteen
CHAPTER Twenty
CHAPTER Twenty-one
CHAPTER Twenty-two
PART Three
CHAPTER Twenty-three
CHAPTER Twenty-four
CHAPTER Twenty-five
CHAPTER Twenty-six
POSTSCRIPT
OTHER NOVELS BY DONNA JO NAPOLI
Stones in Water
Fire in the Hills
The Prince of the Pond
Jimmie, the Pickpocket of the Palace
Gracie, the Pixie of the Puddle
Soccer Shock
Shark Shock
Shelly Shock
The Magic Circle
The Bravest Thing
On Guard!
Changing Tunes
Spinners
Three Days
Zel
When the Water Closes Over My Head
DUTTON CHILDREN’S BOOKS
A division of Penguin Young Readers Group
Published by the Penguin Group
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living
or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Donna Jo Napoli
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
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Published in the United States by Dutton Children’s Books,
a member of Penguin Young Readers Group
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
www.penguin.com/youngreaders
eISBN : 978-0-525-47999-4
http://us.penguingroup.com
Thanks to Barry, Eva, and Robert Furrow, to Libby Crissey,
Aimee Friedman, Annette and Jack Hoeksema, Samara Leist,
Anders Lindgren, Luciano Pezzolo, Andrea Pinkney, Mimi Svenning,
Richard Tchen, and my superb and exacting editor, Lucia Monfried.
But most of all, my gratitude is to Nick Furrow, whose initial and
constant suggestions sustained me.
For Hayden Headley,
my newest joy
PART One
CHAPTER One
ELISABETTA, where are you going?”
Oh, and I was so close to the door. Ah, well. I descend from tiptoe and walk from the corridor into the kitchen. On the cutting counter in front of her lie a skinned hare, raisins, pine nuts. “The garden is lovely this morning, Mamma.” I lean around her shoulder from behind and kiss her cheek. “But if you want help, of course I’ll stay.”
“Ha! My sweet delight, do you think you fool me?” Mamma gives me just the briefest twinkle of her eye and returns her attention to mincing. “I know how you feel about cooking.” She makes three little tsks of the tongue.
Many women of the noble class don’t cook, but Mamma takes pride in it. Under her quick blade, the bright green pile of parsley and rucola turns to a deep forest green mash. I move to stand beside her. The aroma bathes us. I can almost taste it.
“This is your father’s favorite dish; I must be the one to prepare it. Alone. A good wife takes pride in her husband’s hums of pleasure at the dining table. You should mend your ways and learn the culinary skills. It will bring you joy.” She smiles contentedly, though she doesn’t look up. “False offers of aid—who taught you that?”
I pick up a loose leaf and chew it. The bitterness makes me suck in my breath. “A good wife does so many things. You’re always adding to the list. I wager a good wife needs to know how to make false offers, too.”
“Watch that tongue.” But she laughs. She wipes her hands on her apron, then turns to me. Her palms cup my cheeks lovingly. “You’re clever, Elisabetta, but you’ll be thirteen in just two months. In many ways you seem older than your years—yet in some ways, you’re far too young. Think about what needs your attention rather than running off to the woods.”
“I said the garden.”
“You meant the woods.” Mamma tilts her head. “Are you becoming deceptive?”
“If I am, I might as well give it up. I’m clearly no good at it.” I peek under the cloth covering the basket on the table. The rolls are still warm. Old Sandra has been busy. She does her work before dawn, then goes home to care for her ailing husband. “You can’t understand anything these days, Mamma. When I woke, I threw the shutters wide and the scent of jasmine snaked into the room.” I snatch a roll and twirl around the table. “It twined up my arms, up my neck. It pulled me almost flying out the window.”
“Oh, my.” Mamma makes a pretend show of alarm. “Beware that sharp nose. We mustn’t have flights of fancy turn you into an angel. By all means, use the stairs to descend, like the rest of us mere mortals.” She protrudes her lips in thought. “It’s best you put charcoal to paper today and think about the dress we need to have made.”
I swallow the last of the roll and bounce on the balls of my feet in triumph. “I’ve already thought about it.”
“Do you have to bounce in that undignified fashion?”
“Yes.”
“Sassy girl.” But then she takes a deep breath. “Desist in the presence of others, at least. That’s better. Now tell me these thoughts of yours.”
“I can show you. I drew it last night.”
“Well, then.” Mamma appears so surprised, she’s at a loss for what to say next.
“We’ll look at it
later,” I say, taking control before Mamma recovers. “After Papà has eaten and hummed up a storm. In the meantime . . .” I let my eyes plead.
“There are so many things that need to be planned.” Mamma speaks very slowly. Her eyes hold mine. “But I suppose there’s time for the woods, too.”
“Hurrah.” I grab a few pine nuts and make for the door.
“But if you want to be the belle of your own ball, Elisabetta, cover those arms with something other than the serpentine odor of jasmine vines. A man of noble birth notices a girl of noble birth. And a girl of noble birth does not allow the sun to color her arms like those of a peasant.”
“Country nobles know the sun isn’t picky about who it shines on, Mamma.”
“Who’s fishing for a country noble? You’ll get betrothed to a city man. From one of Florence’s best families, I’ll wager. The Rucellai, perhaps, or the Pazzi, or the Acciaiuoli, or the Martelli, or the Ginori, or . . .” She pauses for effect, her index finger poised in the center of her cheek. “. . . the Medici.”
I press my lips together hard. Mamma’s counting on this party, on me. I’m an only child; who else can she put her hopes on? But it’s still unfair. I speak as gently as I can manage. “Your dreams are too lofty.”
“Don’t be silly! This party is exactly what the males of those families need to remind them of you.”
“They never noticed me in the first place, so how can one remind them?”
“Of course they noticed you. You’re Papà’s beauty.”
“Papà’s. Exactly. No one else thinks I’m a beauty, not even you.”
Mamma’s face looks stricken. “Don’t be difficult, Elisabetta. You’ve played with their sisters and daughters every time we’ve visited Florence your whole life.”
“Daughters?” My cheeks go slack. “I don’t want to marry an old man.”
“Widowers make attentive husbands.”
I’m pressing my knees together so hard, they ache. “I can’t,” I say through clenched teeth. “I can’t marry one of them. And you can’t make me.”
Mamma’s eyes go liquid. “I didn’t make the rules. This is the way the world is.”
“I won’t. I simply won’t.”
She reaches out and her fingertips lightly brush my throat. The look on her face is of such tenderness, I want to cry. “Then you’ll have to be at your best, Elisabetta,” she says softly. “Cover those arms well. Don a hat, too.”
I nod, unable to speak.
“Now . . .” She flicks the back of her hand at me. “Off to the woods with you.” And she returns to her meal preparations as though the moment has passed and we can both immediately put it out of our minds. Another good-wife trick.
I remain immobile, weighted by her words—but only momentarily. She’s released me for now and, oh, the woods are calling. I race up the stairs, popping pine nuts in my mouth. I pull a light waistcoat from my closet. Then I close the heavy doors.
This is a very fine closet. It stands on four carved eagle claws that curl over gilded balls. The doors hold large mirrors. I can’t stop myself from looking.
My dark brown hair hangs just below my shoulders. It’s never been cut, not once in my whole life. For some reason, it doesn’t grow to the same length as other girls’ hair. Still, it’s long enough to make elaborate hairdos, which is what Mamma will do for my party. And it’s thick and wavy, forming a fine frame for my face.
My eyes match my hair. There isn’t much else to say about them.
My nose is straight. My cheeks are high and round. My chin comes to what Mamma calls a sweetheart point.
And since my monthly bleeding started, my body has become womanly.
That’s the sum of it, I guess.
I look down at my arms. I haven’t been outside without long sleeves yet this spring. It’s only early April. My skin is still the color of the underside of olive leaves. I slip on the waistcoat. How strange to think my skin must stay light until after the party—in June. Mamma says my birthday month is as good a time as any for such a party. That means two whole months denying my skin the sun, when I so much like turning brown. Papà calls me his little nut, his almond.
Two months till the big party. A shiver shoots through my shoulders and neck. I walk to my table. The dress design I finished yesterday stares up at me in all its coarseness. Drawing is a boy’s activity, yet it annoys me that I’m so poor at it. Still, Valeria’s mother is a good tailor. She’ll see what I was trying to get at.
Can Valeria’s mother make a ball dress that transforms me into a noble girl? Well, I am a noble girl, of course. But can she make me appear dignified, so that I’m worthy of the grand men of Florence? The grand young men, that is.
We are neither city folk nor rich. And this year Papà’s silk business is only limping along. Nonetheless, he wants a lavish party. It will be an announcement of my active participation in real society. He’s absolutely sure it will lead to marriage offers.
Many fathers arrange for a betrothal entirely on their own, father to father, as if it were a business arrangement, for economic sense. But Mamma wants me to marry better than money alone would determine. So Papà came up with the idea of this party. He truly believes men’s hearts will pound, for he truly believes I’m beautiful.
I’m glad for that. Every girl needs someone to believe she’s beautiful, after all. I love being Papà’s prize.
And I’m glad for the party, too. This way I can see the men and veto some and encourage others. I lift my jaw in defiance. I will not be married off to an old man with a bulging purse. I want passion before comfort. The passion I learned about when my tutor struggled to teach me to read Ovid’s poetry.
In two months, I’ll be betrothed. And when I am fifteen, my marriage will pull our family up the rungs of the social ladder. I press my hands on my chest to hold in my banging heart. Fifteen. That’s so soon to leave home.
But I’m not leaving yet. Now I’m going to my belovèd woods, where I can wander. Where I can be the Lord’s smallest sparrow and no one needs me for anything.
I slap on a broad-rimmed hat. I’m actually grateful for both hat and waistcoat, now that I think of it. They’ll keep the insects off. I race down the stairs.
“Elisabetta,” calls Mamma.
I stand with the door open. “I’m listening.”
“Gather truffles, will you?”
“I’m not a dog, Mamma, despite my love of smells.”
Mamma comes into the corridor and looks at me with her hands folded behind her back. “The moon has almost finished waxing. They’ll give off the strongest odor now. And if we don’t get some soon, we’ll go without till June—for there aren’t any in May.”
I don’t want to dig and find nothing, and dig and find nothing, and wind up dirty and empty-handed, having lost all my time for wandering. But she’s looking at me as though I can do anything. She always looks at me that way. “I can try.”
Her face softens into a slight smile. For an instant I want to grab her skirts and hide there, small again, roll back the years, smooth her skin.
“We still have a black one,” she says. “So look for the little white ones. Your father’s going hunting soon, and we can stuff pheasants and make a truffle cream sauce.”
“All right, Mamma.” I step outside.
“And, Elisabetta?”
I hold the outer door handle now. This feels like an escape. “Yes, Mamma?”
She extends her right hand. “A substantial first meal never hurts.” It’s another roll, with a thick slice of salami inside. The moist kind with fennel that I love so much.
“Thank you.” And I’m already eating. “I didn’t realize I was still hungry.”
She’s smiling but almost sadly. “There are things I can understand.”
“I know that, Mamma. I was just talking. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“You have a lot of energy, Elisabetta. You dance around the kitchen and you eat heartily.” She hesitates. “But you
worry me lately.”
As you worry me, I think.
“Your eyes are solemn. I miss the sound of your laughter. Where has my cheerful daughter gone?”
I close the door.
CHAPTER Two
OUR GARDEN STRETCHES OUT in brilliance. A rosemary border breaks the sweep of wind off the hills. Within this aromatic hedge, gravel walks weave through sun-warmed flower beds. Spikes of white lilies and purple callas perch high. Lilacs perfume blankets of blue delphiniums and yellow chrysanthemums. And roses hide in tight buds, soon to dazzle the eye with pinks and reds. April is a showy month.
I rub my face in blooming lavender, then circle the statues of the muses out of habit. Once I reach the vegetable terraces, I run. A breeze skims the leaves of the olive grove. They flutter: silver, green, silver, green. The immature fruit shimmer. Our oil is the best in the Chianti area. That’s what Papà says. Every autumn landowners bring olives to Greve to be pressed, but there are many landowners and few presses. So it takes months. Papà pays the miller a tip, and just like that our olives get pressed right away, while they are fresh and the taste is robust. I love to dip bread in our oil, all thick golden green.
Now I’m running in the meadow beyond the grove. A herd of cows grazes. Most hills close to Florence are too steep for cows, but the ones around here slope gently. That’s why Mamma can make dishes with cream and why we can have many cheeses and not just pecorino all the time.
This is, indeed, a perfect place to live. When I marry, I will make my husband buy a country home here, and I’ll visit often. For weeks at a time. Maybe months.
A cow lows. A calf wobbles beside her. It’s new! I gape. Oh, I’d love to pet it. The bull raises his enormous head at me. “All right, grumpy,” I call, and run on by.
Orange poppies shake their blank faces at the world. They’re so dumb and guileless, they make me grateful. And now I enter the cool shade of the woods and breathe the heady lemon scent of citronella and watch the light dapple on the beech trunks. I’m leaping and playing the role of fawn, when Oh! “You startled me.”
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