“Buon giorno, Federico,” I called in greeting one afternoon as I passed him in the immense courtyard. He was leaning against the cool stone wall of the palazzo in the heat of the day, reading a bit of parchment. “What have you got there?”
He smiled at the sight of me, a bright, wide smile. “Well met, Maddalena. Just a letter from home.” He held up the parchment.
“Good news, I hope?” I said, drawing closer.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he said. “My father expects a fine harvest this year, despite the heat. He is a winemaker, you see,” he added.
“Indeed? And will you return to the vineyard someday to assume the running of it yourself?”
He made a face. “No, not I, for I am the second son, and content to be so. I have no head for numbers and no true desire to make wine, so it is just as well that my elder brother, Samuele, does. I have a taste for the city life, for adventure, so I struck out on my own to Rome.”
I smiled, pleased that Federico had shared this with me. We’d never spoken much of our lives beyond our work in the Vatican Palace—only the barest of details.
“And what of you, Maddalena?” he asked. “Is there no one where you come from to write to you?”
My smile floundered. “No,” I said, casting my eyes down at the dusty cobblestones. “My husband is dead, as you know, and I have only my mother left.” A mirthless laugh escaped my lips. “And even if she could write, she would have no desire to write to me.”
I jumped as Federico placed a hand on my shoulder, for I had not noticed him draw nearer. “Ah, poor Maddalena,” he said softly. “How can it be that so beautiful and bright a star is not missed?”
I looked away from his earnest eyes. I could never repeat the ugly words my mother had spat at me when I decided to come to Rome after Ernesto’s death, to get away from her and her spite before she could arrange another loveless marriage for me: You are a worthless puttana, a handmaid of Satan himself, that you would leave your mother all alone. There is nothing in a city like Rome but sin and depravity for a woman alone. And what will you do for work, sell yourself? If you leave, do not come back, not with such sins as you’ll find there to stain your soul.
I had no desire to ever go back. Her words haunted me—the promise of sin and corruption and evil—but I had yet to find myself embroiled in any such things. After all, I worked in the house of the pope. Where on earth could possibly be safer for my soul?
“It is a long story,” I said at last, meeting his eyes.
I do not know what he saw in my gaze, but his expression softened. “I understand, I think,” he said. “I hope you know I’ve a ready ear if you ever decide to tell it.”
“I thank you for that, amico mio,” I said softly.
“And in the meantime,” he said, his voice louder and more jovial, “I shall write you notes, Maddalena, and have them delivered to you, that you might know the joy of correspondence.” He paused and looked at me anxiously. “You can read, yes?”
I smiled. “I can. I was lucky to have an uncle who was a priest. He taught me to read and write.” Another gift from Uncle Cristiano, who had had the time and love for me that my father never did in his brief life. Uncle Cristiano would have written to me.
Perhaps Federico would have to do.
Federico’s expression cleared. “Eccellente. You may expect messages from me in the future.”
I laughed. “I shall look forward to it.”
He swept me a bow and kissed my hand gallantly. “And if the lady would do me the favor of writing back, why, I may even faint dead away from the honor.”
“Your correspondence must first prove its worth,” I teased.
He tucked his letter from home into his pocket. “I shall give it all due thought and consideration,” he said gravely. “Now I must be off—there is a new horse just arrived in the stables, a Spanish mount, and if I’m to get a look at him before I must be back to work it needs to be now.” With one last bow and a wink, he turned and crossed the courtyard toward the stables. Federico had a great love of horses and spent all his free time hanging about the stables, chatting with the grooms.
I remained where I was, smiling after him like a fool. Federico was as handsome as they came, tall and well-muscled with merry eyes and a head full of sandy curls. And for all his flirtation, could such a man see me as more than an acquaintance, a friend? What had just passed suggested he might. I could certainly find no better catch in Rome, not a young widow of my station. Yet … did I want to marry again?
My features twisted into a scowl as I remembered Ernesto. He had owned a farm larger than ours, and though he was a widower over twenty years my senior, my mother had arranged the match when I was just fifteen—rather a young age to marry, in our village at least. “The sooner I’ve not got to worry about your mouth to feed, the better,” she’d said when I’d protested. So I’d married Ernesto, having had only one conversation with him prior to our wedding day.
I hadn’t loved him, nor had he loved me. He largely ignored my presence in his house, unless something was not to his liking, or he wanted to engage in the marriage act, which was often. I bit back my dislike of the act, for his hefty weight on me, his member inside my body. I knew it was a wife’s duty. I endured it—and the other acts he directed me to perform for his pleasure—without complaint, even if I knew I was not always successful at hiding my distaste. It did nothing to further endear me to him. I tried always to keep Uncle Cristiano’s advice in mind—Matrimony is a holy state, Maddalena, and the one God wishes for his flock—but my marriage had been miserable. Uncle Cristiano’s death of a fever, a few months after he performed my marriage ceremony, had only darkened my life further.
But as luck—and I crossed myself at the thought, at the sin of finding relief in another’s death—would have it, my sour marriage had lasted only a year. He had inadvertently strayed onto the lands of some lord or other while hunting. The lord and his men, assuming he’d been poaching, had tied him up and shot him full of arrows as punishment. Even bearing no love for Ernesto, I had been horrified to hear how he’d met his end. Yet I shed no tears, not when the news was brought to me, nor when I washed and prepared his body for burial, or even during his funeral Mass.
His death left me without a penny, for his son by his first wife—who was my age—inherited the farm, farmhouse, and everything else Ernesto had to his name. There was nothing left for me. But I was free.
I was free, and I thanked God for it every day, even on those nights when I was too exhausted from my duties to work on my embroidery. I had charge of myself, as much as any woman ever could, and I would never be sorry for it.
And if Federico did want to make me his wife, I could say yes or no as I pleased. I could not help but feel the marriage act would be rather different with a man like him.
Enough, Maddalena, I counseled myself. The man wished to write me some notes, not propose marriage.
But even so, the smile was back on my face.