“I hate my mother,” Bianca said, and heard a small gasp from the priest.
“She only wants what is best for you, my daughter,” Father Bonamico replied.
“No, she wants me to live my life with a man I don’t love, as she has had to do, and I don’t want to follow in her footsteps, Father. I want to wed the man I love.”
“I am told he is an infidel.” The priest’s voice was disapproving.
“Such things matter not to me,” Bianca told her confessor. “I love him, and he loves me. Now he has disappeared, and they will not tell me where they have taken him, or if he is all right.”
“Your immortal soul should concern you, my daughter,” Father Bonamico scolded her gently. “Physical love is fleeting, a passing fancy. God’s love will never fail you.”
“Why can I not love God and Amir too, good Father?” she asked him.
“Physical love has but one purpose, my daughter. The procreation of children to sustain our faith. You cannot give this infidel children, for he would not allow them the one true faith. He is among the already damned, and doomed to suffer hellfire one day. No. Better you love only God, Bianca. And you can show that love by obeying your parents. They are mindful of the great sacrifice you were forced to make for your family’s sake when they saw you wedded to Sebastiano Rovere. This time they will find you a good man who will truly care for and respect you.”
“I will wed no man but the man I love,” Bianca said. She arose from the narrow little bench in the confessional and drew back the heavy velvet curtain to step out.
“My daughter, I have not given you your penance,” Father Bonamico said.
“I suffer each day I am apart from Amir,” Bianca told him bitterly. “That is my penance, good Father. It is more painful than anything you could give me.” Then she called softly to Agata and the two women left the church. She had always found comfort in the Church, but today she had not.
As they slowly walked across the broad piazza, a large, long-haired, golden hound loped up to block their way. Both women gasped with surprise, for there was no doubt it was Darius. The dog whined, pushing his long nose into Bianca’s hand.
She knelt. “Darius! How did you get here?” Her other hand stroked him, and when it touched the dog’s collar she realized there was a note beneath it. She slid the paper out, secreting it in the hidden pocket of her gown, then stood up. “Go back to your master, Darius,” she ordered the dog, who then loped off into the little park on the edge of the piazza. She did not see where he went, but it didn’t matter. “Let us hurry now so I may read the note,” she said to Agata.
“Krikor was probably with the dog,” Agata said in a low voice. “The prince would have come into the piazza and taken you away.”
Gaining the palazzo, the two women hurried to Bianca’s bedchamber. Agata locked the door behind them as her mistress drew the note from her pocket, opening it to read what was written inside.
Beloved,it began.Do not fear for me. I am held captive in the Palazzo della Signoria, but well treated while they await an answer from my grandfather to recall me to Istanbul. Krikor is free to come and go, but our old friend Lorenzo has warned me if he is caught attempting to communicate with you he will be severely punished. I cannot allow it. Do not attempt to communicate with me. Soon I will be freed on the sultan’s orders. Do not despair. I will find you, Bianca, wherever they take you. You are mine, and I, yours. This will be the only message I dare to send. Remember that I love you. I will always love you. Amir
Bianca began to weep softly. “He is safe,” she said. “I was so afraid that they had killed him, or were torturing him, but he is safe.” She held the parchment to her breasts.
Agata waited a moment and then reached for the missive. “It must be burned so no one finds it,” she said. “You want no one knowing he has reached out to you, mistress. They could be less forgiving of his behavior if they learned he had defied them.”
“Let me read it over once more,” Bianca said, and she did. Handing the parchment to Agata, she watched as her servingwoman refolded the note into a small rectangle before stuffing it in her pocket.
“I’ll take it to the kitchens and burn it,” Agata said. “The fires are hotter there.”
“I am suddenly hungry,” Bianca announced. “I want a bowl of pasta with olive oil and cheese.”
Agata smiled. “I will tell the cook, who will be happy to know it,” she said and then she hurried off to do her mistress’s bidding. And while the cook crowed delightedly at the news that Bianca was hungry, Agata took advantage of his distraction to see the prince’s note burned to ashes.
Bianca would still not talk to her mother, which distressed Orianna greatly. No one had ever treated her in such a hard fashion, and she was not used to it. It did not occur to the mother that the daughter was very much like her in her determination to have her own way. But Orianna was relieved that Bianca had begun to eat again. Her pale skin lost the sallow look it had developed. Her ebony hair grew shiny once more.
Seeing the improvement in his daughter’s features, Giovanni Pietro d’Angelo decided that it would be better to send Bianca to her grandfather in Venice, where her younger sister Francesca currently resided with her mother’s family. Perhaps if Bianca was away from her mother, her attitude would improve.
The silk merchant had never seen his strong-willed wife driven to her knees, but Bianca was doing just that. He was in a perverse sense admiring of his eldest daughter’s resolve, although he would never make such an admission. She had recently taken to replying to almost everything Orianna said with the words “Amir will find me wherever you send me, and he will take me away.” Those simple words had begun to get on Orianna’s nerves, and her husband had almost laughed aloud the other evening when Bianca repeated them once again. Orianna had only been able to half muffle her shriek of frustration. She had shot her husband a furious look, seeing his struggle to contain his humor. He had been forced to reprimand their daughter. Bianca merely shrugged, giving him a half smile as if they were coconspirators.
“Why does she hate me and not you?” Orianna asked him afterwards. “It was your decision, not mine, that married her to Rovere. I protected her for as long as I could. And when I learned of the abuse she was suffering, I took her from Rovere’s palazzo and hid her. It was I who begged my father to help us intercede in the matter of an annulment. Yet she hates me.Me!”
“You were her friend as well as her mother,” Orianna’s husband explained. “She knows you were the guiding force that took her from the man she loves. Do you not consider that a great betrayal, wife? Our daughter does.”
“But, Gio, this prince is an infidel!” Orianna wailed.
“And the man you loved before you were wed to me was married to another,cara mia. That did not stop you from loving him, or trysting with him in defiance of your family. You have never ceased loving this man, although you were required to wed me, yet you have been an exemplary wife to me. So do not, I beg you, be surprised at our daughter’s behavior over her prince. Like you, she will give her heart once, and she has done so.”
“Would you allow this foreigner to carry her off?” Orianna demanded. Although she had always known her husband was aware of her youthful passion, he had never until this moment spoken of it. It made her uncomfortable to hear him voice her girlish indiscretions aloud, to understand that he knew her so very well when all she realized she knew of him was that he had been indulging her all these years.
