As in all families of wealth and importance, respectable adult women did not leave their homes except on rare occasions, such as attending Mass or going to their villas in the countryside outside of Florence. Privileged daughters might accompany their mothers to church, as Bianca did, but their only other foray outside of their father’s homes would be when they were married or entered a convent. The garden served as a place for recreation and fresh air. It was there that Bianca now found her sister Francesca.
“Were there men again today waiting for you?” she eagerly asked. She was seated with her nursemaid, who was brushing her blond hair. Francesca’s golden tresses were a source of great pride to her. They were washed weekly and rinsed with fresh-squeezed lemon juice and warm water. And she always dried her hair in the bright sunlight while her nursemaid slowly brushed the long locks so they might gain the full advantage of the sun.
“Yes,” Bianca answered. “A larger crowd than before.”
“I heard that one accosted you,” Francesca said, her face turned to her sister’s. “I don’t know why our mother does not let me come to Mass with you.”
“How do you learn such things and I am barely back in the house?” Bianca asked.
Francesca giggled. “Whenever they know you are returning from church, a bunch of the housemaids run to the top of the house and the windows overlooking the square to watch your passage back across the piazza. Ohh, I wish I could be with you. Did you keep your swain’s bouquet? Let me see it!”
“I would not take any kind of gift from a stranger, or any man for that matter, but our father and brothers,” Bianca replied primly. “Such a query tells me that you are far too young to be allowed out, Francesca. You have only just turned ten. I was not permitted to accompany our mother until I had celebrated my thirteenth birthday last year. Remember, you are the daughter of an important man of business from Florence and of a Venetianprincipessa, Francesca.”
“Oh pooh,” came the airy reply. “You have become so stuck-up of late. Well, you’ll be gone soon enough, for our father is even now arranging a marriage for you. By summer you will be wed, and mistress of your own house. Then our mother will take me across the piazza to Mass with her.”
“What do you mean our father negotiates a marriage for me? What have you heard, littleficcanaso?” She grasped a lock of her sister’s hair and yanked it hard. “Tell me at once! Who is it? Do you know? Is he handsome? Has he come with his father to negotiate with our father? Speak, or I will snatch you bald!”
“Ouch!” Francesca protested, retrieving her hair from Bianca’s grip. “I only overheard a little by chance. I was passing by our father’s library yesterday when I heard voices coming from the chamber, and the doors were closed.”
“You eavesdropped!”
“Of course I did,” Francesca said. “How else would I learn anything that goes on in this house? I put my ear to the door and heard our papa say that our mama did not wish their daughters to marry within the Florentine community. That he agreed, and planned for our marriages to benefit the Pietro d’Angelo family to the maximum. Papa said he had all the influence he sought or needed in Florence.
“The man, his voice was hard, and he told Papa that a marriage tohimwould ensure the security of the Pietro d’Angelo family. He reminded our father that a debt was owed to him. It would be paid in full when his marriage to you was celebrated. Father asked that he request anything else of him but such a union. The man laughed. Oh, Bianca, I did not like his laugh. It was cruel.” Francesca shivered with the memory.
“Madre di Dios,”the older girl whispered almost to herself. Then she said, “What else, Francesca? What else did you hear?”
“Nothing. I heard someone coming. I didn’t want anyone catching me. You know Papa would have whipped me for it. I didn’t dare stay,” was the regretful reply.
Bianca nodded. “I will speak with our mother,” she told her sister.
“Ohh, please don’t tell that I eavesdropped!” Francesca begged.
“I won’t,” Bianca promised. “I’ll say I heard the servants gossiping. Mama will tell me if any such arrangements for my future have been made. She will know.”
“I don’t want you to marry and leave us,” the younger girl admitted. “I didn’t mean it when I said I’d be glad to have you gone.”
“I know that, littleficcanaso,” Bianca assured her sibling with a small smile. Then she went off to find their mother and learn the truth of what her sister had heard.
“Your mother is closeted with the master,” Fabia, her mother’s servingwoman, told Bianca. Then she lowered her voice to speak in a more confidential tone. “It is something serious, for I heard your mother raising her voice, which is most unlike her.”
“I have heard rumors regarding a marriage for me,” Bianca said softly.
Suddenly the door to her mother’s privy chamber was flung open, and her father, his face dark with anger, strode out and past them, exiting Lady Orianna’s apartments.
“I will never forgive you for this, Gio!” her mother shouted after him.“Never!”Then, seeing Bianca, she burst into tears, turned, and slammed the door shut behind her.
“I must go to her,” Fabia said.
Bianca nodded, and left her mother’s rooms. Her mother had shouted. Orianna never shouted. And she had looked positively distraught. Orianna Rafaela Maria Theresa Venier, aprincipessaof the great Venetian Republic, never raised her voice, never allowed her emotions to show, and yet she had done both within hearing of not only her eldest daughter but a servant as well. Whatever was happening was not a good thing.
Francesca awaited Bianca in her elder sister’s bedchamber. “What did you learn?” she demanded.
Bianca told her of the scene that she and Fabia had just witnessed.
Francesca’s blue-green eyes grew round. “Our mother never shouts like some common fishwife,” she said. “And to tell our father she would never forgive him... what has he done to incur such wrath from her?”
“I do not know,” Bianca said, “but I suspect if we are to learn, it will be sooner than later.” A rap sounded on the closed bedchamber door. “Come!” Bianca called out.
