but messages from another place. But as soon as I began to believe in her a little, I would see the
sharpness in her eyes when she bit on a coin, and change my mind, thinking that after all it was merely harmless cunning.
She was certainly popular, which suggested that her pronouncements and remedies had some effect. People of all kinds came to her. Sometimes it was an anxious mother, too poor for the apothecary,
who wanted a remedy for an ailing child, sometimes a portly merchant wanting to know the most auspicious time to set out on a journey, sometimes a labouring man who thought his apprentice was
stealing from him. Mostly, though, Margherita dealt in love.
Love, as I saw it then, was to do with lack and money. Love was the pain of mourning, as I mourned my papa and, more dimly and sweetly, my mother. Or, it was money – Adara’s
business. Margherita’s clients seemed to see it much the same way. They lacked, they yearned, they wept and they paid. And it was as well that Margherita believed me dumb, for I learned more
from those anxious confidences of what happens between men and women than I had ever perceived in my brief period as a tenant in a whorehouse, and the knowledge shocked me beyond words. So many
ways for the flesh to ache with desire, so many ways to profit from it. An elderly husband anxious to please his young wife was prescribed cow dung beaten up with fresh eggs and white wine, a
servant girl whose sweetheart had taken up with another was advised to steal a lock of his hair, soak it in her menstrual blood and hide the charm beneath his bed for a month. Margherita’s
clients believed she could make wayward lovers return, indifferent lovers fond.
She dealt in consequences, too. A betrothed bride anxious that her fiancé should not learn she had gone too far with an earlier beau? Margherita assured her that her virginity would be
restored with alum boiled in linen. A harassed mother of ten who could not bear to bring another mouth into the world? A scraping of a mule’s nail melted into the wax of a sacred candle and
placed on her body when her husband came to her in the night should ward it off.
None of the remedies Margherita recommended were in the least like the medicines my papa had so carefully prepared after consulting his books. I could not believe that any of them truly worked.
But so long as I made my silver necklace jangle and looked wisely into the distance; so long as I made a dumb show of choosing a charm from her hands or tracing the line of a beloved’s fate
in an eager palm; she and they were happy. As was I, for each week Margherita would give me a silver florin, which I tied in the corner of my skirt and smuggled silently into a hole I had worked in
my pallet at night.
I had begun to have a plan, a real plan. At the end of the summer, I calculated I would have a stock of money enough for a suit of plain clothes and a carter to carry me away from Florence. It
was so easy to slip away each evening and one night I should simply not return. I doubted that I was valuable enough in that great and complex household for anyone to care for my loss anyway. I had
no thought of where I might go, or how I should live, but the thought of escape was enough to sustain me through long days in the sweltering kitchens. My dowry of books was gone, stolen and sold by
Adara, but I could read and write, I knew Spanish and Italian: I should find something, somehow. I dared not count my coins at night, for fear the chinking would alert those three pairs of spiteful
blue eyes, but I thought of them, each solid weight another step to freedom. For a time, my dark dreams were suspended by hope.
As midsummer drew near, the evenings grew longer. Amidst flurries of preparation, sweating and swearing from the servants, Donna Alfonsina had finally left Florence with her son and her new baby
daughter for the cool of the hills, but the palazzo remained busy. Unusually, Piero de Medici had
sharpness in her eyes when she bit on a coin, and change my mind, thinking that after all it was merely harmless cunning.
She was certainly popular, which suggested that her pronouncements and remedies had some effect. People of all kinds came to her. Sometimes it was an anxious mother, too poor for the apothecary,
who wanted a remedy for an ailing child, sometimes a portly merchant wanting to know the most auspicious time to set out on a journey, sometimes a labouring man who thought his apprentice was
stealing from him. Mostly, though, Margherita dealt in love.
Love, as I saw it then, was to do with lack and money. Love was the pain of mourning, as I mourned my papa and, more dimly and sweetly, my mother. Or, it was money – Adara’s
business. Margherita’s clients seemed to see it much the same way. They lacked, they yearned, they wept and they paid. And it was as well that Margherita believed me dumb, for I learned more
from those anxious confidences of what happens between men and women than I had ever perceived in my brief period as a tenant in a whorehouse, and the knowledge shocked me beyond words. So many
ways for the flesh to ache with desire, so many ways to profit from it. An elderly husband anxious to please his young wife was prescribed cow dung beaten up with fresh eggs and white wine, a
servant girl whose sweetheart had taken up with another was advised to steal a lock of his hair, soak it in her menstrual blood and hide the charm beneath his bed for a month. Margherita’s
clients believed she could make wayward lovers return, indifferent lovers fond.
She dealt in consequences, too. A betrothed bride anxious that her fiancé should not learn she had gone too far with an earlier beau? Margherita assured her that her virginity would be
restored with alum boiled in linen. A harassed mother of ten who could not bear to bring another mouth into the world? A scraping of a mule’s nail melted into the wax of a sacred candle and
placed on her body when her husband came to her in the night should ward it off.
None of the remedies Margherita recommended were in the least like the medicines my papa had so carefully prepared after consulting his books. I could not believe that any of them truly worked.
But so long as I made my silver necklace jangle and looked wisely into the distance; so long as I made a dumb show of choosing a charm from her hands or tracing the line of a beloved’s fate
in an eager palm; she and they were happy. As was I, for each week Margherita would give me a silver florin, which I tied in the corner of my skirt and smuggled silently into a hole I had worked in
my pallet at night.
I had begun to have a plan, a real plan. At the end of the summer, I calculated I would have a stock of money enough for a suit of plain clothes and a carter to carry me away from Florence. It
was so easy to slip away each evening and one night I should simply not return. I doubted that I was valuable enough in that great and complex household for anyone to care for my loss anyway. I had
no thought of where I might go, or how I should live, but the thought of escape was enough to sustain me through long days in the sweltering kitchens. My dowry of books was gone, stolen and sold by
Adara, but I could read and write, I knew Spanish and Italian: I should find something, somehow. I dared not count my coins at night, for fear the chinking would alert those three pairs of spiteful
blue eyes, but I thought of them, each solid weight another step to freedom. For a time, my dark dreams were suspended by hope.
As midsummer drew near, the evenings grew longer. Amidst flurries of preparation, sweating and swearing from the servants, Donna Alfonsina had finally left Florence with her son and her new baby
daughter for the cool of the hills, but the palazzo remained busy. Unusually, Piero de Medici had
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