A flour-dusted man met us at the door, a broad smile creasing his face. “Gabriele, how unlike you, to pay a visit before nightfall—how did you manage to tear yourself away from your work? Rinaldo has gone to purchase our grain, and Bianca is upstairs sleeping.” He caught sight of me and his smile widened. “And who, may I ask, is this delightful guest? Will she be joining us for dinner?” Gabriele. I registered his name with a start. The baker, whom I assumed was Gabriele’s uncle Martellino, bowed at the waist, producing a small puff of flour from his apron. Before Gabriele could answer, a young woman came out from the back of the shop. She was shorter than Uncle, and trying to see around his width without success.
“Father, move, I can’t see through you!” The baker moved to the side and she squeezed through the doorway. “Gabriele, aren’t you supposed to be painting the Ospedale?” The girl caught sight of me. “Were you planning to introduce your companion? Dinner is not ready yet.” When she saw Gabriele her face changed abruptly. “Gabriele—your clothes are stained with ash—what happened?” As my brain put the pieces together: Gabriele, painter, Ospedale, Accorsi, I felt the hair on my arms rise.
“This good lady is a scribe at the Ospedale, and she was trapped in a fire from which I managed to extract her. May I present my cousin Ysabella, and,” he said, nodding toward the baker, “my uncle, Martellino.”
Ysabella touched my hand solicitously. “What are you doing keeping this poor woman standing outside in the street? Gabriele, have you no sense?” She turned to me with a much kinder expression. “Come inside and sit; I’ll bring you a cup of spiced wine to revive you.”
I turned to my rescuer. “Your name is Gabriele?”
“Yes, Gabriele Beltrano Accorsi. It is my great pleasure to serve you. And you, Signora?”
“Beatrice.” I said it the Italian way. “Beatrice Alessandra Trovato.” Seeing Gabriele in front of me now, as real as my own solid self, unnerved me. I’d created a person in my head, based on the words I’d read. My imaginary Gabriele was pale, effete, and emotionally close to the surface, with no sense of humor. That virtual person had no relationship to the man standing in front of me at all.
The real Gabriele was much taller than I had expected—taller than me and taller than most of the other people I’d encountered in the fourteenth century—and although he was slim, no one would have described him as effete. He moved gracefully, despite his height. Oddly, I couldn’t read him at all. His voice was quiet, but the sort of quiet that makes you aware of the power underneath, like an ocean without wind—peaceful, but you know you are no match for it.
Ysabella and Martellino led me to a low bench, inquiring after my health. Ysabella disappeared and returned with a tray of enticing items: a cup of hypocras—wine with spices and honey—a wedge of pale yellow cheese, and slices of fresh bread, still warm from the oven. I devoured it all shamelessly, thanking them between bites. While I ate, I took in the details of the room around me. Where there would someday be a hall table and a lamp that I’d almost knocked over on my first day in modern Siena, now a wooden flour chest—I’d heard Clara call it a madia—stood against the wall. A set of neatly organized weights and a scale were displayed in the front of the shop. The wood-burning oven with its arched opening proclaimed the baker’s trade, along with the flat long-handled wooden paddles that reminded me of pizza parlors back home. What I’d known as a decorative fireplace had once been the hearth of this medieval kitchen.
A trestle table with benches on either side was set up in the room, ready for a family meal—dinner was the midday meal in this century; supper came at night. Two huge iron pots hung on a chain above a lit fire: one with water heating, the other releasing a meaty scent. A narrow shelf held several jars, a mortar and pestle, a salt box, a set of nested brass cooking bowls, a copper frying pan, and a set of earthenware dishes. A few impressively large utensils hung on pegs from the wall near the fire.
Once I had finished eating, Ysabella stood up and announced I must come upstairs to rest. She had clearly marked me as her project. Gabriele stood up to assist us, but Ysabella waved him away. “I can provide the lady all she needs,” she said authoritatively. Gabriele looked at her with warmth, then turned to me. “You are in the best possible hands with our Ysabella. Just be certain to do everything she says.”
I followed Ysabella up the steep stairs, reluctant to be separated from the author of the journal I’d pored over in modern Siena. At the top of the stairs, I could still hear Gabriele and his uncle talking in hushed voices below. Ysabella led me into what had been Ben’s bedroom, but there were no books and papers piled on the floor, just fresh-smelling rushes over the wooden boards. Being there, but with no sign of Ben’s presence, made me miss him acutely. But now, neither he nor anyone else I had known and loved in my old time even existed yet.
Ysabella’s next question effectively distracted me. “Would you like to bathe? It will help dispel the smell of smoke from your skin and hair.”
“You have a bathtub?” I hadn’t had a real bath since my last access to twenty-first-century plumbing.
“We may not be casati,” she began—I recognized the word that designated the noble classes—“but my father built our own tub. The public baths are better equipped, but I hope you will find our modest version pleasing.”
What an idiot I’d been. For weeks I’d been splashing awkwardly with a pitcher and basin of water in my little room, and meanwhile all over the city, and maybe in the very building I lived in, people were luxuriating in big bathtubs. “I’m very grateful for your hospitality.”
Ysabella smiled broadly, then yelled down the stairs at the top of her lungs.
“Fazio! Bring hot water, and be quick about it! There is a pot already on the fire.” She disappeared out the door and soon returned, dragging a small round tub made of wooden slats, lined with heavy white oiled cloth. I got up to help.
“You must recover your strength.” Ysabella pushed me firmly down onto the large curtained bed and took off down the stairs. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked around the room. The one window had no glass in it now; I could see the translucent oiled paper rolled up above the window opening and beyond it a rectangle of sky. After a few minutes Ysabella and a boy with floppy black hair came back carrying the first of several steaming buckets. When the boy had left, I stood to peel off my smoky dress. I unhooked my bra and stepped out of my underwear carefully, feeling wobbly. Ysabella was staring at my bra as if she were a naturalist discovering a new species.
“What manner of garment is that?” The most mundane things from my old life could get me into trouble.
“Oh, I made it myself,” I said airily but held on to it so she couldn’t get a close look. Hooks and eyes were probably medieval enough to avoid suspicion, but not elastic or nylon. Ysabella was gracious enough to leave me to my bath without further questions, and I lowered myself into the hot water, sighing with pleasure. I had to bring my knees against my chest to fit, but that couldn’t diminish the exquisite sensation of immersion. I thought of the next letter I’d write to Nathaniel, telling him how offering a bath to guests was a normal thing here.