A Golden Web Part 10

But Tonio, used to being treated as a scourge, only came closer. "Yes," he said, squinting at Nicco in the firelight, "I can see the resemblance between you-although he's not nearly as fat!"

In a trice, Nicco grabbed Tonio by the collar, until only the long, curling points of Tonio's secondhand shoes brushed against the ground. "He's not nearly as apt to lose his temper, either!"

Tonio, undaunted, looked Nicco straight in the eyes. "He's quick with that big knife of his, though."

A smile lit Nicco's face. "You know where I can find-my brother?"

Tonio, with both feet flat on the ground again, made tender readjustments to the rags that pa.s.sed as his clothes. "As it happens, Your Highness," he said, "I am one of his most trusted a.s.sociates."

Nicco snorted. "Where is he, then? Tell me the truth and I'll pay you well."

Tonio moved a bit away, far enough so Nicco wouldn't be able to grab him again. "I don't exactly know...." He threw his arms up in front of his face when Nicco raised his hand-but it was only to send Tonio packing.

"Leave me be, rodent, if you have no information for me!"

"That's just what he called me!"

"One of his closest a.s.sociates, are you?" Nicco took another swig of his wine, found it cold, and spat it out. "Waiter!" he called.

"I said I didn't know exactly where he was-but I didn't say I have no information." Tonio sidled close to him. "I do have information. Privileged information, I might add."

"Are you still here?"

Tonio came close enough to whisper-and Nicco moved away, repelled by the odor of his words, even while hanging on their meaning. "Both he and his nanny are still in Bologna!"

"You know about Emilia, do you?"

"I do," said Tonio, sounding very well satisfied with himself (and taking Nicco's repugnance in stride). "I also know where they buy their bit of bread and cheese of an afternoon."

"Why didn't you say so?" Nicco slapped some money down on the table to pay for his wine. "Take me there, lad, without delay! You'll be able to buy yourself some decent clothes before this day is done."

Alessandra was under considerable pressure from Emilia, who was fed up with dressing as a man. Between the come-ons of wh.o.r.emongers and her utter isolation from other women during the long hours when Alessandra was immersed in her studies, Emilia grew more and more despondent. She hated that smirking ragam.u.f.fin Tonio, and was convinced that Signora Isabella was the Devil's sp.a.w.n. Much to Alessandra's distress, Emilia had taken to drinking in taverns during the long and lonely afternoons. She'd sometimes forget herself then, doing or saying things that might imperil the secrecy of their entire enterprise.

After a day spent inquiring after new long-term lodgings-a day she hated taking away from her studies-Alessandra realized that the only way to allow Emilia to go back to dressing like a woman was to unmask her as Sandro's nanny. There was no question of being able to start over in another part of the city as two other people; everyone, it seemed, already knew about the prodigy Sandro and his plump, womanish servant.

The reality of their situation cost Alessandra-as Sandro-in terms of her masculine pride. How could Sandro hope to be taken seriously as a scholar if he was known to be traveling in the company of his nursemaid?

They were discussing this-in truth, they were arguing about it-when Tonio brought Nicco to the threshold of their favorite bakery.

"By G.o.d," breathed Nicco as he caught sight of his sister. "She looks amazing!"

Tonio, looking at Emilia, squinted his eyes. "Do you think so? She doesn't have the figure for it at all-far too soft and lumpy."

Nicco hastened to give Tonio a silver coin. "Here, my boy! You've been wonderfully helpful."

Tonio stared at the heavy coin in his hand. It was more money than he had ever possessed in his lifetime.

"I'll give you another just like that if I find you've kept this whole thing strictly to yourself. Not a word to anyone!"

"Cut out my tongue if I tell anyone, master!"

"Now go!"

Tonio disappeared so quickly, it was as if he'd never been there.

Nicco strode inside the bakery, which was empty except for Alessandra and Emilia, who shrieked when she saw him.

"Hush!" cried both brother and sister as one.

"Are you real?" Emilia stretched out her hand to touch Nicco's cheek. "You must be real, because spirits don't have p.r.i.c.kly whiskers-I'd swear by it!"

"Nic!" Alessandra couldn't help it: She threw her arms around her brother.

"You didn't think I wouldn't come, did you?"

"I'm so glad to see you!"

"You look thin, Alessandra. Emilia, you're here to see that she eats properly!"

Alessandra shushed him. "I'm 'Sandro' here-and I'm 'he,' not 'she,' as far as the world concerns itself with me."

"Which is quite a lot, from what I've heard-Sandro! You're the most famous student in Bologna, it would seem."

"Well, I want to stay famous, if I must be famous, for the right reason. Oh, Nic-I've missed you so!"

They clasped hands and looked into each other's eyes.

Alessandra hadn't allowed herself to feel so weak and vulnerable since her arrival in the city, nearly a year ago. It required all her self-control not to break down into tears.

Nicco looked a proper man now. She wondered if she had also changed, reached up to touch her cheek, and then laughed when she realized how very different she looked since her brother last saw her.

"Come away with me, Sis-come home!"

"Don't be daft-I can't."

"Oh, Mistress!" said Emilia, wide-eyed with excitement. "Couldn't we? I am so lonely for Persiceto and all its comforts! How is Dodo? And our Pierina?"

"Dodo can sh.e.l.l peas and count to one hundred. And our Pierina..." He turned to Alessandra. "Pierina and Giorgio are betrothed."

Alessandra stared. "Betrothed? But, Nic"-she grabbed his hands again-"Nic, she's too young!"

Emilia, beside herself with happiness, wiped her face with the rough linen of her sleeve.

"She's so happy," said Nicco. "And it means that both of them will stay at home."

Alessandra paused, taking it all in. "It will have to be a long betrothal! Pierina can't marry until I do-and I'm going to avoid the event altogether, if I can."

Emilia surprised both of them by pointing out the obvious. "That's the most selfish thing I've ever heard you say, my pet. Would you have your sister be a spinster to suit your whims?"

"She's only thirteen, Emilia-I mean Emilio. Oh, bother! She's hardly in danger of becoming a spinster. And at the rate I'm going, I can get my degree in philosophy next year and go on to the medical school."

Both Nicco and Emilia were looking at her the way they did when she was little and they'd caught her out in a misdeed of one kind or another.

"I am studying as fast as I can, I do a.s.sure you! And I will not marry now, no matter how many castles my bridegroom owns!"

"You might like him," said Nicco. "Father took a lot of trouble about choosing him."

"Or was it our stepmother who chose him?" She sighed. "Marriage is out of the question, anyway. I have work to do!"

Emilia gave a loud and audible sigh. "Poor Pierina!"

"She can wait!"

"Your year is up, Sis-you're expected to come home from the convent this Christmas. It's been all I can do to keep any of the family from visiting you there these past twelve months. I've run out of astrological events to keep them from traveling. In fact, they think I've gone there now, to bring you home."

"Well, I won't go. How can I?"

"Oh, be reasonable, for a change, Zan! You've had your year of breaking all the rules. You've stayed alive-cut your losses, girl!"

"You think it's been merely a matter of breaking rules?" Alessandra shook her head. "You don't know me, Nic."

"I know you better than you know yourself-and I certainly know the world better than you do."

"Not at this point, you don't! I've lived on my own here and made a good job of it, too."

"On your own you've lived, have you?" asked Emilia with a shake of her shoulders that would have fluffed out her feathers if she'd been a bird. "And I suppose I haven't devoted my days and nights to looking after you!"

Alessandra, forgetting herself altogether, gave Emilia a kiss on the cheek. "You've been wonderful, Emilia. And, truly, you should go home now. Go home with Nic!"

"But who will protect you, my little love?"

It was infuriating how, after all the strength and resourcefulness Alessandra had shown, Emilia still treated her like a child. It was her turn to sigh impatiently. "These clothes are my protection. Sandro, my alter ego, is my protection. I'm in need of no one else." Alessandra looked at both of them. "Not even you, Emilia! Go home to Persiceto. I'm sure you'll be most welcome there."

"I wonder," said Emilia.

"Father will see to it that you are. Take her home with you, Nic-please! Truly, I never meant to involve her."

Nicco looked at Emilia, who seemed to be pleading with him to agree despite her protestations-and then at his sister, who had that stubborn look she got on her face when she wouldn't be swayed from a decision, not for anything. He pushed his hair back from his forehead. "At least promise me you'll come home for Easter! I'll come get you."

"I can come by myself." She pulled her cloak aside to show Nic's old knife, always kept by her side now. "You forget-you taught me well."

"Too well, by all appearances."

"It is not out of desire to be one of your gender that I dress this way." Alessandra thought of her mother's portrait, a nipped-at piece of gold now, with only traces left of the Virgin's robe and the feet of the angel Gabriel.

She suddenly missed home. She wanted to see her other siblings and go by herself to the storage room, where she could open the trunk of her mother's clothes and touch her cheek to them. "I'll come," she said. "I promise. There will be no lectures, anyway, on the holy days at Eastertime."

Nicco held her by both forearms and smiled. "Good man, Sandro!" he said loud enough for anyone in the place to hear.

"But I will have to find new lodgings between now and then-and it is no easy thing these days, with the city overflowing with students."

"Never worry." Nicco laughed. "I know just the little man who will turn Bologna inside out to help you!"

Twelve

Under the influence of another silver coin from Nicco, Tonio asked Sandro where in all of Bologna he would most like to lodge. And Alessandra told him, "At the home of the great doctor, Mondino de' Liuzzi. I've heard that he and his wife take in boarders." asked Sandro where in all of Bologna he would most like to lodge. And Alessandra told him, "At the home of the great doctor, Mondino de' Liuzzi. I've heard that he and his wife take in boarders."

The fact that Mondino had already heard of Sandro made Tonio's job rather easy. As it happened, a room in Mondino's house had just become available, as the student occupying it had been called away on family business. Sandro could move in that very day. Tonio himself would carry Sandro's belongings and show him the way.

To Alessandro, Mondino's household was strongly and pleasantly reminiscent of her own home in Persiceto. The baby, Leoncio, was just Dodo's age, and Maxie, the elder daughter, was the same age as Pierina. Mina was Mondino's second wife-but, unlike Ursula, she loved and was beloved by all her husband's children.

The other boarder, Bene, was, like Sandro, striving for admittance to the medical school. The big-boned son of a butcher in Lombardia, Bene had astonished his entire village by learning to read and do sums at an age when other children remained as ignorant as puppies. Eventually his parish collected enough money to send him to the University of Bologna, with the condition that he return to them when he earned his advanced degree. They hoped to draw skilled artisans to their village with the presence of a licensed medico medico.

Landing this spot in Mondino's household had been an enormous coup for Bene. And then along came this Sandro-wealthy, refined in his manners, and reputed to be the most brilliant undergraduate in Bologna. Bene looked for-and found-a hundred reasons to resent and dislike Sandro, from his girlish voice to his frequent-and, to Bene's mind, affected-use of Latin.

Mondino had a bit of land he'd recently acquired in Barbiano, in the hills. The land had a house on it-a ram-shackle old thing, which all the family worked on every Sunday after church to make into their summer home, where they could retreat from the heat and filth of the city, grow their own vegetables, and cultivate an orchard.

For Mondino's children, these weekly jaunts to the countryside were pure delight. They saw more of their father than they ever did at home, where he was constantly called upon to diagnose the illnesses of people who came from far away to consult with him, to cut up the bodies of people who died and p.r.o.nounce on the cause of their death, or to demonstrate the wonders of the human body to students and other doctors who came from as far away as Paris to attend his anatomy demonstrations at the medical school.

In Barbiano, though, Mondino liked nothing more than building and planting and sitting at the head of the table in the makeshift dining room they set up under some ancient pear trees. At night they'd light a fire outside and hang lanterns from the trees, and Lodovico, the second son, would strum a lute and sing for them-and sometimes, if she'd had a little wine, Mina could be convinced to dance.

Alessandra soon became a favorite among all the children, who saw in her an unbelievably kind and gentle boy who cuddled the baby and always offered to help with even the most womanish ch.o.r.es, and yet rode and hunted as well as any of the boys. Maxie-the pretty blond daughter who reminded Alessandra so much of Pierina-Maxie grew pale and silent whenever Sandro was near, even though she always contrived to sit by him at table. She did her best to distance herself from Bene, though, whose poverty and humble origins repelled her.

Alessandra was so enjoying the respite from her cares-due to the success of her disguise in her new lodgings-that she failed to notice either that Bene hated Sandro or that poor Maxie had fallen in love with him.

Despite Mondino's reputation and the high esteem in which he was held, the cost of maintaining his large household was always just a bit more than his earnings. So when Otto Agenio l.u.s.trolano came along, offering to pay a princely sum to rent the third extra room in the main house-a small, mean room that had been used previously for storage-his offer was gladly accepted.

Out of fairness for the price paid, Signora Mina moved Bene out of his room, which was next to Alessandra's, and into the storage room. And thus, within the s.p.a.ce of a month of first seeing the comely young Sandro, Otto had managed to set up things so that he would be sharing a wall with him-a wonderful arrangement, Otto reasoned, for cultivating a friendship with the famously brilliant youth to whom he felt so strangely drawn. On the weekends, when they all decamped to Barbiano, he and Sandro could get to know each other even better.

Otto had never met his equal among the youths of l.u.s.trola-and he'd never had a brother, although he'd always longed for one. He felt an odd, unsettling sense of excitement whenever Sandro was near. The thought of making him a bosom friend was unspeakably attractive to him.

Alessandra saw Otto, for the second time in her life, at Mondino's dinner table, where she appeared late as usual, rushing from a final disputation she'd managed to squeeze into her day.