“And what happened to you?”
Gabriele pushed his hood back, and the sun slanting through the entryway fell across his bright hair. “Your strange medicine saved me. But it was many months before I could stand, and more before I could travel home again. When I came home, Martellino and Rinaldo were gone. Thank God the Pestilence spared Ysabella, Bianca, and little Gabriella.”
“Thank God, indeed.” I imagined the two women and a baby, alone in the city as thousands died around them. “Gabriele, may I please touch you? I know it’s not allowed but I can’t bear it anymore.”
“Please,” he said.
I put my hand to his face. His cheek was warm. “You are real.”
“I might have wondered the same of you, but your reality is evident. And your hands are very cold.” Our laughter echoed under the arches. “Beatrice, we ought not to risk further impropriety. Soon our embrace will be sanctioned by God.”
“Amen,” I said. Neither of us made a move to leave. “But I want to risk further impropriety.”
Gabriele stared at me as if I’d spoken a foreign language. In a way, I had. “Do you?” Gabriele’s voice dropped to a whisper. “At this moment?”
“Please don’t say no this time.”
Gabriele gathered my hands between his, tightly. “You tempt me, Beatrice.”
“I’m trying to.”
In one swift move, Gabriele leaned in, pinning my hands between us. Then his mouth was close to my ear, his breath hot on my cheek. “I shall give you a taste of what this marriage will bring, Beatrice, but just a taste. And then I shall make you wait. For there is sweet torment in the waiting, and the relief will be all the more delicious when it comes at last.” He kissed me at the tender spot where my ear and jaw met, where my pulse raced under his mouth. Heat shot to a precise location between my legs. I heard myself moan, a sound I didn’t know I could make. The next kiss was lower, at the base of my throat. He pushed my cloak aside and his lips brushed the bare skin just above the neckline of my gown. He raised his head to look at me.
“You are a dangerous woman, Beatrice,” Gabriele said, breathing hard. “Spectacular and dangerous. I shall imagine you like this, open and wanting, until the night when you are mine at last.”
“God, please don’t stop now, please.” I was almost crying.
He pressed his body into mine so that our hands, caught between us, pressed into the tender spot at the base of my belly, where I could feel the ache building. “I am sorry, Beatrice, but I shall have to stop. When we are wed, you shall have what you deserve. And so shall I.”
I managed to get the words out. “You still want to marry me, even though I use incomprehensible words and touch you when I’m not supposed to?”
Instead of answering, Gabriele kissed me on the mouth. Through that point of contact, his insistent mouth on mine, I could sense the rest of his body and his will: the tension and power in his limbs, the fierce desire held barely in check. It was only a kiss, but he was right—through it I knew what I was in for. He drew back, freeing my hands. Then he closed my cloak gently and solicitiously around my neck.
“Despite, Beatrice, and indeed because of that.”
* * *
After my meeting with Gabriele, I was useless for the rest of the day. I had to toss three bungled pages, I spilled a pot of ink, and I couldn’t add a column of numbers. By evening, I was so agitated that I made my way to the chapel for Vespers. I knelt in one of the pews, trying to let the Latin fill my head, but instead I found myself staring at a young nun whose dress marked her as a novitiate. I watched her kneeling in prayer, the shape of her body hidden by her habit, and wondered what it must be like for her to anticipate a celestial bridegroom instead of an earthbound one. She looked like a paragon of serenity, but who knew what was going on beneath that veil. I gave up on prayer and returned to my chamber. I spent most of the night staring into the opaque darkness of my room.
I woke to the cathedral bells pealing for Prime. Instead of wasting another day in the scriptorium making mistakes, I went for another walk. I’d sold some of the jewelry I’d brought back with me from the twenty-first century, and spent the proceeds on warm winter clothes. I had a pair of soft leather boots, a long linen camica—a chemise—a simple housedress called a gonella, and over those I wore the gown and the heavy gray cloak from my century.
Outside, the biting wind made me wish for the down coat I’d left hanging by the front door of Ben’s modern Siena house. I put my hood up and started walking quickly toward the mercato. The stalls were just opening and I made my way to a pastry seller’s display.
“What’s in those?” I pointed to a high pile of glossy hand-size pies brushed with egg and dusted with sugar.
“Pumpkin, Signora, spiced with cloves. They are still hot—can I tempt you?” I bought two and held one in each hand, eating as I walked and scattering flaky crumbs onto my cloak. The pumpkin was sweet, baked into a custard with a rich mixture of egg and cheese, and it warmed me from the inside. Throughout the market the winter vegetable offerings were sparse—dried herbs, root vegetables, a few squash, and baskets of onions and garlic shedding papery skins. Whole dead rabbits hung trussed by their ankles, furred ears stilled and pointing toward the ground. The crowds were not as dense as I’d remembered—it’s winter, I thought at first, not the best time to be browsing in the market. But then the truth made the pie heavy in my stomach—it’s not just winter. Half the population is gone.
The bells had just rung for Terce when a familiar voice startled me. “Monna Trovato?” The voice came from a figure heavily bundled against the cold. When a small hand emerged to push the hood back, I recognized Ysabella, Gabriele’s cousin.
“Beatrice, please,” I said, smiling. “I’m so glad to see you again.”
“And I to see you.” She smiled back. “For a time we thought you had died in Messina.”
“I almost did. I heard about your father, Ysabella, I’m so sorry.”
Ysabella’s smile faded. “I will mourn him until the day I leave the earth. And Rinaldo is gone too. But they are with God.” She stopped speaking, collecting herself. “Let us not dwell further in despair—now, I hear, it is time for celebration, and Gabriele can speak of nothing else.” Ysabella’s smile was back.
I could feel myself blush. “I’m trying to pass the time without losing my mind. That’s why I’m walking around here in the freezing cold.” It was surprisingly easy to confide in her.