LITMIR.BIZ

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want now? I did hear...’

      Her words were shattered by the crash of a falling bowl, the excited bark of one of the kitchen dogs.

      ‘Maledizione!’ Flavia cursed.

      Isabella glanced back over her shoulder, as if she could see the ‘grand’ messenger, but there was only the empty garden.

      ‘Signorina Isabella!’ Mena called, startling Isabella back to the present moment, the reality of her place. Her head whipped back around to find Mena standing before her in the doorway, balancing a large bowl of boiled greens. ‘So, here you are at last. Are you quite all right?’

      Isabella blinked at her, the woman’s familiar, creased, olive-complexioned face coming into focus. Her dark eyes were narrow with concern. Isabella gave her a reassuring smile. ‘I am very well, Mena. Just a bit too much sun, I think.’

      Mena gave a disapproving cluck and moved around Isabella to set the bowl on the waiting table. ‘You spend far too much time wandering about outdoors, signorina. Soon you will be dark as a Moor!’

      Isabella laughed. ‘I hardly think it matters! No one will see me, dark or fair. Besides, I need the light for my work.’

      Mena tossed her a speculative glance but said nothing. She merely made that clucking sound again, a symbol of disapproval Isabella had known since she was a babe in arms. ‘Go fetch the pottage.’

      Isabella nodded and stepped into the kitchen. The heat of the cooking fires hit her in the face, thick and humid after the cooling evening air, filled with the scents of roasted chicken, spices, boiling vegetables, burned sugar.

      Flavia, a plump, red-faced woman who had also been with their family for as long as Isabella could remember, was stirring a vat of stewed chicken in cinnamon. She merely nodded towards the pottage and Isabella snatched it up to carry it back outside, away from the scalding heat.

      Mena lingered by the table, pouring wine into pottery goblets. As Isabella set down the pottage, she leaned close and whispered, ‘Cousin Caterina sent a letter?’

      Mena did not meet her gaze. She shrugged, fussing with the wine. ‘A letter did come, but who can name the sender?’

      ‘Mena! How many other Strozzis do we know? What do you think she wants?’

      Mena’s lips tightened. She was a country woman, bred of sturdy Tuscan stock, and had lived all her life in this spot. She knew little of Florentine doings, and what she did know she disapproved of. Learning old, pagan ways, looking at paintings of naked goddesses and gods—it went against God and the saints. Even as she loved Isabella, had practically raised her after her mother died, Isabella knew well she did not understand Isabella’s longing for a life that was not her own.

      ‘Oh, signorina,’ Mena said, strangely sad. ‘Why can you not just...?’

      ‘Is this my supper?’ a puzzled voice enquired, thin, confused.

      Isabella gave Mena one more searching look, but it was obvious that the maid knew no more of their mysterious messenger. She had only lectures about appreciating one’s place in the world, the place where God placed one. Isabella had heard it all before.

      She glanced over to see her father standing at the edge of the garden. It was his practice every evening to emerge from his library when it grew too dark to see the pages of his books and wander out the front doors around the house until he found someone to tell him what to do, where to go. It was no use to have servants remind him of the time, or guide him to the supper table—the same table they ate at every night.

      Isabella smiled at him gently. His long, white hair stood out in a thick, uneven corona around his round, ruddy face and his beard was too long, his brows wild above faded green-grey eyes. The green-grey eyes Isabella inherited. Despite the warmth of summer, he wore an old, patched velvet robe trimmed with moth-eaten fur.

      ‘Sì, Father, it is your supper,’ she said, hurrying over to slip her arm through his and lead him to his chair.

      ‘Vegetables?’ he asked, absently surveying the offerings.

      ‘And some stewed chicken with cinnamon,’ said Isabella, sitting down next to him. ‘You like cinnamon. Flavia is just finishing with it.’

      ‘I will go fetch it,’ Mena said and left them to return to the kitchen. The hum of voices resumed in there as Isabella pressed a cup of wine into her father’s hand. How she yearned to ask him about the letter, to discover what was happening with their Florence relations! But she knew full well it would never work to press him. Until her father had some food, some wine, emerged from his dream world of study, he would not even remember what she talked about.

      ‘How was your day?’ she asked, spooning out a portion of the pottage on to his plate. ‘Did you finish the new essay on the Aeneid?’

      ‘No, no, not yet. But I am close, I think. Very close. I must write to Fernando in Mantua. He has documents that will be of great use to me in this matter.’

      ‘Perhaps he would even travel here himself, then you could discuss it in person,’ Isabella said. ‘We have not seen him in many months.’

      ‘Hmm,’ was all her father said.

      Mena returned with the chicken and they ate in silence as the night shadows lengthened and the stars emerged above them. It was a clear, cool evening, the moon a mere silvery sliver on the horizon. Gradually, Isabella felt the tension of the day easing from her shoulders, sliding away on wine and serene silence. When the dessert of rice cooked in honey and almond milk was consumed, the lanterns strung high in the trees were lit and Isabella and her father were left alone. The conversation in the kitchen slowed, until there was only the distant song of the nightingale.

      Isabella leaned her chin in her hand and closed her eyes, envisioning the sketch of young Veronica. There was still something not quite right about the line of the cheek, the flow of the hair, something she could not quite decipher...

      ‘Perhaps I shall invite Fernando to visit,’ her father suddenly said.

      Isabella’s eyes flew open. ‘What? Father, I mentioned that above an hour ago!’

      Her father just smiled. ‘Ah, Bella, you think I do not listen to you. I do. It simply takes time for me to absorb your words.’

      Isabella laughed and reached out to pour more wine into their goblets. ‘That is very good to know, Father. And, yes, it will be a fine thing to have your friend here for a visit. He could help you so much with your studies. I fear you must find it a lonely task, with none to share your interests.’

      ‘I enjoy the quiet,’ he answered and took a slow sip of his wine. ‘After the great clamour at university so long ago, I found that only peace is conducive to true study. Do you not find it so, Bella, in your own work?’

      Isabella frowned, puzzled. She did not know her father even realized she had ‘work’. ‘My art?’

      ‘Hmm, yes. Oh, but then art is different from history. I deal with men who are dead, events that are dust. Art is—well, it is life. How can you progress here, when there is nothing to inspire you? No one to help you?’

      Isabella was utterly astonished. Every evening, winter or summer, rain or star-shine, she and her father supped together here at this table. Yet these were the greatest number of words they had shared in a long while, the most true understanding he had ever shown her. He loved her, she knew that. He just lived so much in his own mind. ‘I am content,’ she said.

      ‘Content. But not happy.’ Her father slowly shook his head, his wild hair drooping over his wrinkled brow. ‘Bella, I forget how young you are. This is the life I want, the life I have chosen. You deserve the chance to choose, as well. To look beyond our home and perhaps find a new way. A fine husband. A wider world.’ He sighed. ‘You are really so much like your mother.’

      ‘Father, what has brought this on?’ Isabella asked, bewildered. ‘Are we not content

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