Bianca (19 page)

“Then you are lost,” Agata replied.

“No! The vessel that was to take us to Turkey is due off our coast in just a few days’ time. We are getting on that vessel, Agata. We will go to Turkey, and we will find our way to Prince Amir’s palace, where we will await his arrival. He will come home eventually. I know he will! Lorenzo di Medici would not harm him, nor has my father the stomach for assassination.”

“Travel alone? Without the prince? Are you mad?” Agata demanded to know. “We will be murdered, or taken into slavery without his protection.”

“I shall tell the ship’s captain that Prince Amir was suddenly called home, and took the overland route; that he has instructed the captain to deliver me off the coast nearest the Moonlight Serai because traveling by sea will be easier for me. We will get to where we are going safely, Agata. I do not intend to allow my parents to make another marriage for me, no matter their well-meaning intentions.”

“God and his blessed Mother help us,” Agata said.

Bianca laughed. “I wish I could see my mother’s face when she discovers that I am gone for all her manipulations.”

But the next morning a troop of men-at-arms in the company of an official, all wearing the insignia of the di Medici, arrived at Luce Stellare.

“I have been instructed by my master, Lorenzo di Medici, to return you and your servant to your parents’ palazzo in the city,” the official told Bianca.

“I regret I cannot comply with such a request,” Bianca told the official, but her heart was hammering against her ribs even as she spoke the bold words. “Neither my parents nor your master has any authority over me. Your men are free to water their animals, but then I would ask that you leave my house and my property immediately.”

“
Signora
, I will not bandy words with you. I have my instructions. Whatever the legalities of this matter are, they are not my concern. I have been given my orders by my master himself, and I am not a man to fail in his assignment. I will give you one hour to prepare for the journey.”

“You will leave immediately,” Bianca told the pompous official bravely.

He sighed. “
Signora
, I beg you. Do not make this matter more difficult for yourself than it obviously already is. You will come with me in an hour, and if necessary you will be tied to your horse for the journey.”

“
Signore!
Do not dare to threaten my mistress,” said Agata, speaking up boldly.

“Woman, gather the servants who are part of this household and bring them to me immediately,” the official told her.

Agata looked to Bianca, who nodded, realizing that those who had been so loyal to her should not be made to suffer with her. Agata hurried off, returning quickly with the four women servants and the two menservants.

“Is this all of them?” the official asked.

“Mine is a small household,” Bianca told him.

He nodded, then spoke to them. “This house is to be closed up and secured immediately. You are to be paid for a full year’s service now. Master Pietro d’Angelo thanks you for your good care of his daughter, and bids you all return home to your village. Any livestock here is yours with his permission. This lady will now be taken to Florence, and she will not return. Go now, and do as you have been bid.”

“Filomena,” Bianca called to her housekeeper, “take Jamila with you. She would not do well in the city.”

“What of the dog,
signora
?” Primo asked her.

“The dog?” Bianca was confused.

“Darius, Prince Amir’s hound. He showed up here a few days ago hungry. I combed out his fur, which was badly matted,” her manservant said, “and we fed him.”

Bianca felt a slight cramp in her heart. Both animals were to have gone with them. She turned to Agata and murmured something low. Her servingwoman nodded and ran off. “Will you keep the dog, Primo? You know he is a good hunter, and I do not think he would thrive within the city. He is not used to it. He needs to run.”

Agata returned, and pushed something into Bianca’s hand.

“Take this ring,” Bianca said, giving Primo the bejeweled gold band that had been her wedding ring. It was the only piece of the jewelry her husband had given her that somehow was not left behind when she fled him. “It will keep the dog for years to come. Indeed, it will keep you and your family most comfortably.”

He took the ring but told her, “I would keep the dog anyway,
signora
. He is a fine animal. One day the prince will return for him. I will keep him safe until then.” Primo gave her a small bow. “May God protect you,
signora
.” Then turning about, he left her.

“I will care for Jamila,
signora
. You need have no fear,” Filomena said. There were tears in the housekeeper’s eyes as she spoke.

Bianca removed the small jeweled crucifix she wore about her neck on a golden chain and gave it to Filomena. “To remember me by,” she told her. Then she removed three rings from her fingers, giving the one with a small aquamarine to Gemma, her cook; and to each of the two little maidservants she gave a gold ring. They all began to weep.

Seeing that he would soon have a situation on his hands, the official barked sharply at the sobbing women servants. “Go about your business immediately! This house must be closed within the next hour or two. Hurry now!” He clapped his hands at them. Now he turned to Bianca and Agata. “
Signora
, you will have baggage that must be loaded. Your father was so kind as to send a cart and driver. My men will help load your belongings if your servingwoman will be so kind as to direct them. I assume you will ride your horse. Will your woman, or would she prefer to travel in the cart with the driver?”

“We will both ride our horses,” Bianca said. Then turning, she left him to prepare for her journey. She didn’t want to leave Luce Stellare but there was no way she could forestall this official mandate of the di Medici. Well, she would return to Florence but only because it was the last place she knew Amir to have been. She was going to find out what had happened to him. And she was going to make her parents wish they had never interfered with her life. “I did not run from Sebastiano Rovere,” she said to Agata, “only to be forced into another arranged marriage for the benefit of everyone except me. I will find Amir, and I will go with him wherever he goes.”

Chapter 10

L
orenzo di Medici smiled at Amir ibn Jem as they sat together in a small chamber in the Palazzo della Signoria. “I trust you are finding your quarters comfortable,” he said in a deceptively mild tone. He sipped at the wine in his goblet, noting that his guest did not. He could see his friend was not pleased at all by his imprisonment.

Amir laughed drily. “My apartment is better than a cell in the Bargello below,” he answered his host. “The last thing I seem to remember was being at your dinner table, Lorenzo. It was an excellent meal, as I recall. Can you tell me now why I am here? I do thank you for seeing that Krikor was brought to me.”

“I have written to your grandfather asking that he recall you, Amir,” Lorenzo di Medici said quietly. “I regret having to do this, but your behavior of late has brought you to this state. Since it will be some weeks before I will receive a reply and you cannot be left to wander freely, I have seen to your incarceration during this interim. It is for your safety as much as anything else.”

“My behavior? I only come to the city for the purpose of doing business, Lorenzo, and I rarely socialize with anyone whom I might have offended.” Then the truth dawned on him. Amir gave his host a rueful smile. “This will be about my involvement with a certain lady, Lorenzo, will it not?”

His companion smiled and nodded. “How discreet of you not to mention her by name, my old friend. Yes, it is about the lady.”

“Your walls have a tendency to absorb interesting bits of information, and then repeat them to any who would listen,” the prince replied with a small smile. “However, my intentions towards the lady are honorable. I wish her to be my wife. I love her, and she loves me.”

“Are you prepared to convert to the one truth faith, then, Amir?” Lorenzo di Medici asked, knowing the answer in advance. “You are an infidel, and as such will never be allowed to wed the lady in question. I’m sorry, but that is the truth of the matter, and surely you are sensible enough to understand that.”

“I would allow her to keep her own religion, as my ancestor Sultan Orkhan allowed his Byzantine princess wife to keep hers,” Amir said.

“The Greek church is a schism of the Holy Mother’s Church, my good and dear friend,” Lorenzo di Medici explained. “Here in the West, that princess was considered no more than your ancestor’s concubine. If you wed your lady love, she would be considered as such, and her loving family would disown her. She could never again see them. She would be dead to them. Is that what you want for her?”

Amir was suddenly afraid for Bianca. “Where is she?” he demanded to know. “Is she all right? What has been done with her?”

“No harm has nor will come to her,” the di Medici reassured his companion. “I have sent my own soldiers and a household official down to Luce Stellare to bring her back to her family here in Florence. The villa is to be shut up, the servants paid for a year and sent back to their own village. Her family will make her see the wisdom of their decisions. They will make another—a better—marriage for her. There is no harm done here. The lady was a widow, not a virgin. If there is no fruit of your entanglement, and that will be known quickly enough, then she will leave Florence sooner rather than later to become another man’s wife. As for you, Amir, you will remain here in the Palazzo della Signoria awaiting the sultan’s orders to return home to your own land.” He drank deeply from his goblet, then continued.

“I regret having to do this, but I am told that shortly there would have been a vessel anchored off the coast opposite your own villa come to take you and the lady back to your own home there. You understand that we could not allow you to abscond with the daughter of a respected Florentine house. Such a scandal could have endangered the chances of the lady’s other sisters marrying into the right families. So here you must remain, awaiting your grandfather’s orders to return home. I hope he will not be too angry with you, but I have been given to understand you are one of his favorite grandsons, so perhaps this will not put you entirely out of his favor.”

“A favor, Lorenzo,” Amir said. “Will you allow my slave, Krikor, to return to my villa to fetch my dog? I am particularly fond of that hound. I raised him from a puppy, and he came with me from Turkey. I should like to have him when I return home.”

“Of course, of course,” Lorenzo di Medici said, understanding. A man’s favorite dog was a part of him. “The slave may come and go freely, even if you cannot. You may desire a courtesan to come and visit you. It is quite permissible. I am told you are most popular among these ladies. Warn Krikor, however, that he is not to attempt to contact the lady we have so carefully shielded from gossip this day, my friend. If he is caught he will be severely beaten. I cannot be defied in this matter.”

“I understand,” Amir said. “I value him too much in one piece to endanger him.”

Lorenzo di Medici stood up. “Then I shall leave you,” he said.

“What? You will not give me an opportunity to beat you in chess?” Amir asked.

Lorenzo di Medici chuckled. “Another time, old friend. I have sat as long as I can today. I have not yet ridden, and you know how much I enjoy both the exercise and the outdoors.” He stood up and stretched his long limbs. “Perhaps one day you will ride within the piazza with me. I know you are an active man, and being cooped up here will eventually become frustrating for you.”

“She can’t be forced into another marriage,” Amir called after his guest.

Lorenzo di Medici turned. “Eventually she will have no choice,” he said. “You have met her mother, I know. Orianna will have her way sooner than later.” Then he was gone, leaving Prince Amir ibn Jem to consider their conversation. Oh, Signora Pietro d’Angelo would try her best, but he did not believe she would overcome Bianca’s determination.

Orianna Pietro d’Angelo was not getting her way in the matter of her eldest daughter. Upon her return, Bianca had refused to speak with her mother, despite the warm and loving welcome her family had given her. She would not eat unless the meal was brought to her chamber, and then she ate only what was necessary to sustain her, making a point of sending back her favorite dainty delicacies that were brought to tempt her. She began to lose weight—and she had never been a full-figured girl to begin with. Her lustrous, long dark hair became dull and lost its healthy sheen.

Orianna was at her wits’ end. “Why do you refuse to understand that what has been done has been done for your own good?” she demanded of Bianca one day.

Bianca said nothing. Indeed, her eyes were not even focused on her mother.

Orianna shrieked with her frustration. “You are an ungrateful girl!”

Bianca shrugged, then turned and walked away from her mother. It was an act of defiance such as had never been seen in the Pietro d’Angelo household.

“I will send you to a cloistered nunnery until you come to your senses!” Orianna screamed. “I will give orders for you to be beaten daily, and fed on bread and water!”

Bianca turned. “Anywhere I do not have to listen to the sound of your harping voice,
signora
, will be paradise,” she said. They were the first words she had spoken to her mother in the month since she had been brought home.

Orianna’s mouth fell open with shock, and she collapsed against her servingwoman, Fabia, gasping.

“You are a wicked girl!” Fabia scolded Bianca.

“If I am, I have learned it at your mistress’s hand,” Bianca replied coldly.

Orianna made a noise that sounded very much like a squeak.

Bianca laughed and then said, “With your permission I will go and make my confession for these sins of disrespect to Father Bonamico.”

Orianna could not speak but she nodded weakly. Perhaps the priest could talk some sense into her stubborn daughter.

Bianca called for Agata to join her, and the two women put on their hooded cloaks, left the palazzo, and walked across the piazza to Santa Anna Dolce. They found the elderly priest, and Bianca told him she would speak with him in the confessional while Agata waited for her.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” she began.

“Tell me the nature of your sins, my daughter,” the priest answered her.

“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.