Bitter Greens (13 page)

‘You’re lucky you know your birthday. Most of us don’t.’ There was no resentment in Elena’s voice. She believed it was no use weeping over the past, and, besides, all the girls at the Pietà had been abandoned by their mothers. Many suffered more debilitating deformities than her club foot.

‘I wish I knew my birthday,’ Dymphna said with uncharacteristic wistfulness.

‘You can share mine,’ Margherita said. Dymphna’s round face creased with pleasure.

‘I wish we could give you a birthday gift,’ Elena said. ‘If I had a fortune, I’d give you your own lute.’

‘I’d have liked that.’ The lute was Margherita’s favourite instrument – able to weep or be joyful, to be played alone or with other instruments, to be high and sweet, or low and intense.

‘I’d give you a week off scrubbing pots,’ said Sperenza. ‘Not a week, a month. A whole month without a single pot.’

‘As long as I didn’t have to do it instead,’ said Agnese, the other kitchen maid.

‘I’d give you a different-coloured dress to wear,’ Carmela said. A sensitive girl with a gorgeous contralto voice, she longed for beauty and harmony. ‘I’d dress you in green, or lilac, or turquoise-blue. Or even grey. Anything but bright red.’

Margherita smiled, but for a moment she felt an inexplicable stab of pain. She remembered a green dress, with a sash the same colour as her hair …

‘That’s not a present for Margherita, that’s a present for you,’ Zita teased. ‘I’d give you a day out on the lagoon on a barge, with a feast and music and dancing. But only if you took all of us with you.’

‘At Carnevale time,’ Margherita said. ‘We could see the fire-eaters and the acrobats and the jesters, and the crowds all dressed up in masks.’

Everyone sighed with longing. It was hard being kept inside four high grey walls all the time.

‘I’d give you a horse,’ Agnese said. ‘A white one, with a silver bridle, like the one in the tapestry in the refectory. Wouldn’t you just love to ride through a forest on a horse like that?’

‘I’d give you a camel,’ Dymphna said.

Everyone fell about laughing. Dymphna laughed too, her mouth wide open, her eyes crinkled into slits.

‘But why?’ Elena demanded.

‘I’ve always wanted to see one,’ Dymphna said. ‘I’ve heard stories about them. You can ride them over the desert and drink their milk and not get thirsty, even if there’s no water for miles. And I saw a carving of one once, and it looked a most incredible beast.’

‘I’d like to see a camel too,’ Margherita said. ‘And lions and elephants and monkeys.’

‘Me too,’ Dymphna said happily.

‘I’d like to travel the world,’ Margherita said. ‘There’s so much I’d like to see. Mountains that touch the sky and oceans that pour over the edge of the world.’

‘I’d like to travel the world too,’ Elena said, ‘and sing at the courts of kings and queens, and wear gowns of silk and velvet, with ropes of pearls in my hair.’ Her sherry-brown eyes glowed at the vision of herself she saw.

‘We can’t,’ Carmela said. ‘We’re not permitted to sing in public. Not even once we leave here.’

‘If we ever leave here,’ Elena said, all her animation quenched. She was now twenty, and there seemed little possibility of her finding a husband or a position in a private household. She would have to stay at the Pietà till she died.

There was a long moment of silence, then Sperenza stood up and began to clear away their cups and plates. ‘I’d better wash these up before Christina wakes up from her nap.’ Agnese got up, rolling up her sleeves and going to the pump to draw some water. Margherita jumped up too, but Sperenza shook her head. ‘No, let us do it. It’s the only gift we can give you.’

‘But it doesn’t seem fair. I mean, you don’t know your birthday …’

‘You can do all the washing up for us at Christmas,’ Sperenza said, with a return of her usual sparkling humour.

Margherita groaned. ‘But so many pots and pans at Christmas.’

‘Ah, well, at least you can have today to relax and enjoy yourself,’ Agnese said, carrying a bucket across to the enormous kettle that hung on its hook above the hob.

Dymphna yawned widely and went to check her butter. Margherita went out into the courtyard with Elena, Zita and Carmela, her best friends from the
figlie di coro
. ‘You’re the one who should be dreaming of singing at court,’ Elena said to Margherita in a low passionate voice. ‘You have the most beautiful voice of us all, and you have a chance to leave here. It’s a crime that you’re to be sent to be a scullery maid to that woman. It’s such a waste of your talent.’

‘You need to be careful,’ Zita said, with a thrill of horror in her voice. ‘I’ve heard that she’s really a courtesan, and she goes to the
ospedales
looking for pretty young girls to adopt, and then sells their maidenhood to the highest bidder.’

Margherita shuddered. She rubbed her left thumb and ring finger together, feeling the smooth skin of the old, white, scoop-shaped scar there. Had that woman really bitten off the fleshy pad of her finger? Or was that just a dream? Had she really been stolen, or was it just a story she had made up to explain her parents’ abandonment of her? Many of the girls there made up such stories and, like Margherita, were always hoping for their parents to find them again. Margherita could hardly remember any life outside the Pietà. It was all faint and blurred, like cloth that had been washed so many times only a shadow of the design remained.

All she knew was that a woman called Signorina Leonelli had sponsored her and would come one day to offer her a job as a housemaid. ‘You’ll have to do a better job of scouring knives once you’re at Signorina Leonelli’s house,’ the cook would say, watching Margherita cleaning the kitchen utensils with river sand. ‘
She
won’t put up with any laxness like I do.’

When Margherita closed her eyes and thought about Signorina Leonelli, she remembered golden-red hair and eyes like a lion’s, and a sweet voice saying, ‘I’ll eat you all up.’

‘Maybe she’s forgotten about me. It’s been such a long time.’

Elena gave her long braid an affectionate tug. ‘She must have paid a fairly substantial amount for you not to have your hair cut, or your heel branded. It offends Suòra Eugenia every time she sees you. I’ve seen her wince at the sight of you.’

‘It’s the sight of that orange hair hanging against the red uniform,’ Carmela said. ‘It makes me wince too.’

‘If only I could escape,’ Margherita cried. ‘I’d run away to Ferrara or Florence, and sing my best as the duke drove past. Didn’t Ferdinando de’ Medici discover an eleven-year-old girl singing in Rome and take her back to Florence to be trained? I’m twelve and I’ve already had years of training.’

‘There’s not a duchy that wouldn’t welcome you with open arms,’ Elena asserted. ‘It’s all the rage now, to have a
concerto delle donne
. I heard there’s even one in Rome now, despite what the Pope says.’

Elena always knew anything there was to know about music in the world outside their little grey circle; she was taught by the
maestri
who came in three or four times a week to instruct the older girls.

‘It’ll be much easier to escape from a courtesan’s villa than from here,’ Zita said. ‘You just need to be careful she doesn’t sell you off first.’

‘But I’m only twelve,’ Margherita said.

‘The perfect age for some,’ Zita said.

‘Don’t frighten her like that,’ Elena reproved her. ‘Suòra Eugenia would never allow one of the Pietà girls to end up in a brothel.’

‘I bet she would, if enough money was paid,’ Zita argued. ‘Suòra Eugenia wants to rebuild the church with a new choir. She’s insanely jealous of the new church at the Incurabili.’

‘Let’s not talk about it,’ Elena said, slipping her arm about Margherita. ‘That woman hasn’t been here in five years. I’m sure she’s forgotten all about Margherita. Anything could have happened. She could be in the Ospedale degli Incurabili herself!’

All the girls giggled, for the Ospedale degli Incurabili was a hospital for those suffering from syphilis.

Two weeks later, Margherita was roused from sleep by a firm hand on her shoulder. She woke with a jerk and sat up, clutching her thin blanket to her. Suòra Eugenia stood by her bedside, a tall figure all in black. The frail light of a single candle flickered on the bedside table beside her. ‘Get up, my child,’ she said in her cool emotionless voice.

Margherita looked about wildly and saw, with a wrench of panic in the
pit of her stomach, two immense crooked shadows thrown up against the wall outside the open door, cast by two people waiting out in the corridor.
The witch and the giant!
She opened her mouth to scream.

Suòra Eugenia’s hand clapped over her mouth. ‘I do not wish any disruption. You must be quiet. If you scream or cry, I will flay the skin from your back. Do you understand?’

Margherita jerked her head up and down. As Suòra Eugenia removed her hand, she took in a deep breath, prepared to scream at the top of her lungs, but Suòra Eugenia deftly tipped a bottle into her open mouth. Margherita choked and spluttered, but the priora slammed Margherita’s chin up and clamped her hands over her lips and nose. Involuntarily, Margherita swallowed the liquid. It burnt a trail down her tongue and throat.

The two gigantic shadows made their silent way through the rows of sleeping girls. Margherita struggled. The priora’s grip was inexorable. Margherita had time only to see the shadowy faces of her nightmares – one round and pale as a moon, the other beautiful and smiling – then a gag was forced into her mouth, a sack was flung over her head, and she was lifted into the air and dumped over the giant’s shoulder. No matter how hard she kicked or punched or flailed, Margherita could make no impression upon his bolster-like figure. She was swept away into darkness.

Hideous dreams haunted Margherita’s sleep.

She dreamt of her mother, reaching out clutching hands to her as she was dragged under a black undertow. She dreamt of Suòra Eugenia standing over her, the bottle in her hand, and tasted again the acrid draught of despair. She dreamt she was riding a camel into a desert at night, her mouth and gullet as dry as dust. She dreamt she was buried in a crypt, skulls staring at her from neat piles of bones. She screamed till her throat was hoarse but made no noise. She fought to be free of the black figure of Death, who carried her over his shoulder, but made no impact. No matter how she screamed, no matter how she fought, she was powerless.

When Margherita next awoke, she was lying in a soft bed. Warm firelight flickered over stone walls. A silken eiderdown covered her, and gentle hands combed her hair. Margherita stirred.

‘Ah, you are awake at last,’ the sorceress’s voice said. ‘I was beginning to worry. You must be hungry. Would you like something to eat?’

Margherita raised herself up on her elbow. White powdery rolls, a small roasted bird, a salad of greens and a bowl of figs were set on pewter plates on a round table at the end of the low narrow bed. Saliva rushed into her mouth, but she shook her head, turning away. The motion was difficult.
Her head felt heavy and restricted, as if it was bound down with weights. She tried to sit up, looking around.

Her hair flowed down the pillows and along the bed, tumbling down to the floor in waves and ripples like a bolt of golden satin unwinding. Across the floor, the hair spread, filling the small room with silken coils. A white flame of horror coursed through her. ‘What’re you doing? What’s happened to my hair?’

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ La Strega exulted. ‘What a lucky girl you are. Many women would kill to have hair as thick and long and lustrous as yours.’

Margherita stared at the ripples of hair, her breath sharp and uneven, unable to understand how her hair had grown so long so suddenly. Yesterday, it had been long enough for her to sit on. Today, it was so long that twenty little girls could have laid head to toe on it and still not reached the end. Slowly, she began to realise that the hair was not all the same colour. Some of the tresses were more red than gold, some more gold than red. Some hung in tight twists and ringlets, some were smooth and silky, and others formed soft loose curls. Each flowed and coiled into the next, like a river that ran one moment in quick rapids, then fell in a foaming roar, before winding in lazy loops into a tranquil pool.

‘Hold still,’ the sorceress said. She was kneeling beside the bed, a long curved needle in one hand, threaded with fine golden filaments, a long flow of bronze-coloured hair in the other. Margherita stared with wide frightened eyes as the sorceress deftly sewed the bronze locks into the others.

Each time she bound the hair, she chanted:

It was as if her words wrapped chains around Margherita’s wrists and ankles and tongue, fettering her. She could not move or speak, though whimpers of terror struggled in her throat. Soon, all the hair was braided
into one long thick rope, which snaked around the small shadowy room.

‘Now you are mine, sealed and bound,’ La Strega chanted, tying off the last knot.

Margherita could not move or speak.

‘I will show you how to braid your hair around your head, else you’ll never be able to take a step,’ La Strega said. ‘Then, once a month, when I come to visit you, I will wash it and comb it out for you. We will wash each other’s hair. Won’t that be nice?’

Still Margherita did not say a word.

‘Why don’t you eat?’ La Strega said. ‘You mustn’t waste good food.’

This motherly advice seemed so incongruous spoken by a sorceress muttering spells over bundles of purloined hair that Margherita was surprised into laughter. She laughed and howled and sobbed together, rocking to and fro, till La Strega reached forward and slapped her across the face. Margherita fell back, hiding her burning cheek in the pillow, trying to control her gasps. ‘Eat, Petrosinella,’ La Strega said.

‘Don’t call me that,’ Margherita gasped.

‘But it’s your name. Names have meaning. You need to know that your parents sold you to me for no more than a bunch of garden weeds. Would they have done that if they truly loved you? A few sprigs of parsley, some wintercress leaves, a spray of rapunzel … that is all you were worth to your so-called parents. While I … I have kept you safe all these years, Petrosinella, and I’ll keep you safe till the day you die.’

‘What do you want with me?’

‘Just to love you and look after you, like any mother would care for her child.’

‘But you stole me. And you left me at the Pietà!’

‘So did the mother of every other child there,’ La Strega said. ‘At least I have come and got you out again.’

Margherita felt so numb and thick-headed she could not think. ‘You stole me from my own mother.’

‘How dare you,’ La Strega cried. ‘I didn’t steal you, I rescued you. Do you think your father wanted to marry a beggar off the streets? If you
hadn’t been swelling out her belly, he’d have taken his pleasure and then left her, like all the other men before him. He’d have had you aborted, if he’d dared. And your mother only had you so she could force him to marry her. You think she wanted you whining and clinging to her skirts all the time? She’d have abandoned you on the streets long ago if she wasn’t so afraid of what people would say. They were glad you were gone. They never loved you. You were an encumbrance!’

Margherita buried her face in her arms and wept.

‘I know it’s hard. I hate to have to be the one to disillusion you. But you need to be strong, Petrosinella. So sit up and eat the supper I’ve prepared for you. It’ll be the last fresh food you get for a while.’

Margherita shook her head, her long plait rippling.

‘If you don’t do what you’re told, I’ll need to punish you,’ La Strega said. ‘I don’t wish to hurt you, but you must learn.’

‘I won’t, I won’t,’ Margherita shrieked.

La Strega grasped her arm and pulled her across to the window, so quickly that Margherita lost all the breath in her lungs. In seconds, she was pushed against the windowsill, the sorceress standing behind her, her hand gripping Margherita’s shoulder hard enough to bruise. The drop was dizzying. Margherita gasped.

‘Do you wish to die?’ the sorceress said.

‘No!’

‘Then do not defy me.’

Margherita shook her head, both hands gripping the windowsill.

‘You cannot escape from here. I have bound you to my will. You are mine, Petrosinella. Do you understand?’

Margherita nodded emphatically. The sorceress turned her away from that vertiginous fall and gave her a little push back towards the table. ‘Eat.’

Margherita stumbled forward. The weight of all the hair dragged at her temples, making her head throb.

‘Pick up your hair. It’ll get dirty. I’ll be very angry if I find you not looking after your hair. Pick it up.’

Margherita tried to gather up the hair, but there was too much of it.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout. I suppose it’ll take you some time to get used to it,’ La Strega said. ‘Come, sit down. Let me bind it up for you, Petrosinella, and then you’ll be able to move about more freely.’ She made Margherita sit at the table and then, while she ate, began to wind the braid around Margherita’s head.

‘Here are three gifts for you.’ The sorceress showed her a long coil of silver ribbon, an ivory comb decorated with flowers of silver filigree, and a heavy silver snood hung with tiny pearls. ‘With these, you’ll keep your hair in order. I promise you that you’ll come to love it, as I do.’

She then threaded the silver ribbon through her curved needle and began to weave the ribbon in and out of the plaits, securing them in place. While she worked, Margherita made a great effort to eat, pulling apart the roast fowl with her fingers, since no knife or fork had been provided. Once she began, Margherita realised how hungry she was. Soon, the tray was empty of all but crumbs and tiny gnawed bones. A pewter cup was filled with apple cider. Margherita drank thirstily, then realised how much better she felt.

‘If you are still thirsty, there is a tap over there,’ La Strega said. ‘The purest water you’ll ever drink, pumped straight from the roots of the mountain. I will bathe in a moment, and you will wash my hair for me. Don’t you just love people washing and combing your hair?’

Margherita frowned. She had never much liked it at the Pietà, for the older girls were often impatient and rough, hurting her as they jerked the comb through the knots. La Strega had been gentle, though, and had not hurt her once. But Margherita still did not like the feel of La Strega’s hands in her hair. It frightened her, having the sorceress so close.

La Strega looped the remaining braid up and coiled it inside the silver snood. Although the snood weighed heavily on Margherita’s neck, she was able to move about without dragging the plait on the floor. ‘You will need to take your hair out of the snood at night, but the braids should stay in place,’ La Strega said, standing back to admire her handiwork. ‘Oh, it looks lovely. You should say, “Thank you, Mama.”’

Margherita shook her head, though the motion made her neck muscles ache.

La Strega frowned. ‘That is rude, Petrosinella. You must not be so ungrateful.’

‘I’m not grateful to you for tying me up with all this hair,’ Margherita said in a low shaking voice. ‘And you’re not my mother.’

‘Your own mother didn’t want you,’ La Strega said angrily. ‘If it had been up to her, you’d have starved on the streets.’

‘That’s not true.’

La Strega looked sorrowful. ‘Surely, if your parents really loved you, they would have come and taken you back? But no, they left you at the Ospedale. They didn’t come to visit you once. Is that something loving parents would do?’

Tears stung Margherita’s eyes. She wanted to argue, saying,
But how would they know where I was?
Her throat had closed over, though.

‘You can draw the water for my bath now,’ the sorceress ordered.

Margherita had not been able to look around much while she was sitting in her chair, for any movement of her head had caused La Strega to tug her hair and say, ‘Be still.’

Now, walking with hesitant steps towards the tap, Margherita was able to look about her for the first time.

The room was square, its walls built of rough grey stone clumsily slapped together with grainy cement. A heavy rug, woven in warm rich colours – green and blue and terracotta-red – covered the entire floor.

In each wall was a shallow alcove. The latrine was in one, half-hidden behind a red and gold brocade curtain. In the alcove opposite was a small copper tap in the shape of an owl, with a wooden bucket set on a wooden tray below it. Cool air gusted in through the narrow slit above it.

In the alcove near the table was a fireplace, with a small fire burning merrily on the hearth. A pot, a skillet and a battered old kettle hung from hooks above it, with dried herbs hanging in bunches on either side. An iron rack of fire tools stood next to the fire, with a poker and a brush and pan. A vase of heavy-headed red roses stood on the mantelpiece, filling the air with sweet fragrance.

Opposite was the narrow window, shutters standing open so she could
see out into a starry sky, where a full moon hung. Its cold silvery light streamed through this window, illuminating a deep copper hipbath to one side. Hanging on the wall above the bath was an oil painting of a beautiful woman, her shoulders bare above a loose white chemise. Her golden-red hair hung in ripples down her sleeve, and a bearded man in a rich red doublet held two mirrors, one in front and one behind, so she could see to do her coiffure.

Margherita filled a wooden cup with water and drank deeply. The water was cold and pure and helped calm her.

‘It is water from a wild living source,’ La Strega said. ‘There is no water more powerful, unless it be tears.’

‘Where are we?’ Margherita whispered.

‘This is the only remaining tower of the castle of the Rock of Manerba,’ La Strega answered. ‘It was built long ago, on the site of a temple to Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. It is said she fled here to escape Typhon, the storm-giant, and found a place of such power that she settled here. The castle is abandoned now and thought to be haunted. No one ever comes here. No one will hear you if you scream.’

Margherita stood still, stricken.

‘Time for my bath. You’ll need to heat the water on the fire,’ La Strega said. Margherita did not respond, and the sorceress said with an edge to her voice, ‘Please do not make me ask you again, Petrosinella.’

It was hard work, filling the pot and kettle with bucket after bucket of water, then pouring it into the bath once it had heated. The sorceress did not help her but sat in the other chair, crushing three golden apples in a small apple-press and then mixing the juice with liquid poured from two small bottles. The first smelt sour and vinegary, the second pungent and strong. She then rose, went across to a shelf and took down another wooden pot, ladling honey into her mixture. All the time she stirred and mixed, she watched Margherita trudge back and forth. It made Margherita shiver, feeling those tawny eyes upon her. She kept her own head hunched low, surreptitiously studying the room, looking for some way out.