“One moment,” I said.
The workers tugged the horses to a stop, and I stepped onto the field, nearing the beasts just enough to tie the sprigs of wheat and the medals of Sant’Ansovino onto their harnesses. Four identical bundles for four powerful plow horses. I knotted them in place with a prayer for a bountiful harvest, unstoppered a flask, and spilled a splash of pig’s blood onto the fertile field.
I knew the workers were exchanging glances at what they imagined was superstition reserved for peasants, but I’d not be cowed. After the desecration of my grandmother’s tablecloth, I’d not take any chances. Anyone who could do something of that sort had enough malice in them to corrupt our entire harvest without protective measures in place.
I stepped out of the way of the beasts and nodded the workers forward.
For days after the loss of the tablecloth, I’d been a river of tears. I’d had the laundress try every trick she knew for removing bloodstains to at least allow me to keep ribbons of it with my linens, but there’d been no saving it. It’d been too fragile and had unthreaded after a few washes.
I had suspicions as to who was responsible, of course, but there was no proving it. And the culprit or culprits had not settled for just that act of destruction. They’d already begun a finely woven process of slandering my family and me. Purchasing these horses alone had been quite an affair, since word of what had occurred at our cena had spread across the region, rootlike. It resonated in every conversation and every look directed at me or at my husband. Only one farmer, a man with a field bordering one of ours, had bent under the weight of the scudi we offered and risked offending Madonna Scappi and the rest of the women I’d rebuked by selling us the horses, their collars and yokes, and an extra plow. Hopefully he would not be made to suffer for it.
“We’ll start over there,” Florindo said and urged his own horse forward. He directed the workers down to the first field.
If it’d been up to me, I would have put that great, useless beast to work alongside his brethren, but Florindo would have sooner placed the yoke around his own neck than around Spuma’s.
“Perhaps that’s for the better,” I murmured as I watched my husband yank on the reins to keep the white horse from rearing back at the first loud call from the workers.
The blasted thing had always been a nervous, finicky creature, and too smart for its own good, but the move from Genova had been as distressful for it as it had been for me. Its latest compulsion was to kick the rather rudimentary stable door open at night. For the past two mornings, the stablemaster had woken to find Spuma wandering the grounds. This night, it would battle a padlock.
It was my turn to give in to my nervous compulsions now, and so I glanced up at the sky as I’d done for days. It was the glazed blue of majolica and there wasn’t a single scuff of a cloud as far as I could see. A fine day for beginnings.
And it needed to remain this way for a bit because I could already see that it would take a few days to get the fields ready. The progress was slow and uneven. The horses were pure muscle, but the plow we’d bought before leaving Genova was larger and of a better quality than the one we’d acquired from the farmer. That was to be expected, of course, for the man only had a small field of barley to tend to, but now that both plows were working beside each other, the difference was vast. If the fields were not as soft as they were from the years they had spent underwater before the dam diverted the torrent, this smaller plow would be useless. We’d have to invest in a better one next year.
The rumble of wheels made me turn toward the road. A carriage was approaching.
A gloved hand appearing at the window in greeting as it drew closer.
I squinted to try and make out who it was, but it was impossible to wipe the sky’s glare from my eyes.
“Maddalena!”
It took only a moment to recognize the voice. Silvia, the chancellor’s wife.
I raised my hand in cautious greeting and started toward the carriage with a sharp exhale. Nerves bubbled in my stomach as if it were full of vino spumante and I almost stopped to laugh at myself. I’d dined with dukes and princes in Genovese palaces and here I was, worried about what reprimands I might receive for my conduct in my own home.
Nonsense. Besides, Silvia had given me the impression of kindness and simplicity, and that wasn’t something I encountered often.
I straightened my spine and walked on.
“Forgive me for intruding like this, without so much as a message,” Silvia said, smiling. “I was never any good at all the rules that need to be followed when meeting an acquaintance. I’m much too impatient.”
“It’s no intrusion, Silvia. You are most welcome. Oh, and what beautiful gloves you have,” I said, drawing closer to the carriage window.
They truly were, with embroidered and beaded blackberries and rose hips on a cinnamon background. The beauty of summer giving way to the richness of autumn.
“That is so kind. My husband considers them a bit extravagant, so I don’t wear them often, but I thought you would appreciate them.” She glanced behind me. “But I’ve caught you at such a busy moment.”
“Not at all. Not much is required of me except to stand about and look supportive.”
Silvia laughed, a bright sound. “I’m not sure I believe that for a moment, Maddalena. I rather think you are the one directing the entire endeavor. No one who prepared that cena in the manner in which you did could just relinquish command of any situation.”
I smiled. “Perhaps not.”
“And I hope you won’t find me too forward in saying this, but I admired the way you dealt with all that . . . boorishness. I’d not have been able to do such a thing.” She leaned forward in her seat and lowered her voice, as if we were in the middle of a gowned throng. “I, for one, think that it was past time someone put those madonne in their proper place.”
I didn’t allow myself to show the surprise I felt. Taking the side of a newcomer instead of rallying with the old guard was not usually a successful strategy in societal skirmishes.
“You are the only one who seems to think so.”
“To say so, perhaps. They don’t want to fall from their good graces, such as they are, especially with the wife of the massaro. It’s understandable.”
I nodded. “And you?”
“I’m the chancellor’s wife,” Silvia said, tossing her head and lifting her chin in what I was sure she intended to pass for haughtiness. “And if I weren’t such a consummate coward, they’d have heard from me long ago.”
I chuckled.
“But never mind all that nonsense. I wanted to ask you something rather delicate.”
“Of course.” I motioned up to the villa in the distance. “We can sit and have some tea.”
“I wouldn’t dream of imposing on you like that when you are so busy. No, no.” She opened the door of the carriage and tapped the velvet seat next to her. “Please, this is more intimate anyway. Much more in keeping with my woefully misguided longings for intrigue.”
“You’re certain? It really wouldn’t be much trouble.”
She waved my words away and shifted down the seat with a hiss of linen against velvet.
The driver made to get down from his seat to assist me, but I stopped him with a hand and a nod and reached to grab hold of my skirts. I scraped my boots on the foot iron before stepping up and easing onto the seat beside Silvia.
Despite the lightness in her voice just a minute ago, I could feel her nerves racing along my skin, the flutter of them as she turned to look at me. There was a flush to her cheeks that only heightened the paleness in the rest of her face.
She appeared to physically gather her words, picking them like flowers for a bouquet.
“I know,” she began, “I just said I didn’t want to talk about everything that happened at the cena, but I did want to ask you about something that Madonna Scappi said that night. About your affinity for preparing tonics and tinctures.” She clutched her hands together. “I was wondering, have you ever helped a woman conceive?”
There was such hope tucked into her voice that I felt a surge of sympathy for her. I’d not had trouble conceiving or birthing my five children after I’d stopped the pennyroyal infusions that had granted me ten years of childless freedom after Florindo and I married, but I had seen the anguish other women had gone through in Genova. It ate at them, the need to create life.
I also knew I had to be cautious with my words. Misplaced hope could be as dangerous as hopelessness. Sometimes more so.
“I have, yes.”
“I mentioned that night that I’d had difficulties in that respect.” She lowered her eyes to her beautiful gloves. “My husband is too kind to say so, but I know he is disappointed every month. We’ve been married three years already and there hasn’t even been a prospect. The doctors don’t know how to help me, and I don’t really know how to talk to them about it, especially when all they speak of is womb nervousness and unbalanced humors. They’ve given me all manner of things to counteract what they say is my overly sanguine nature.”
I scoffed. “I assume those doctors bleed you.”
“Yes, every few weeks.” Her face was an entire wrinkle of concern. “Is that not right?”
Those barbarians were still in the Dark Ages, leading women to their deaths with their blades and ceramic bowls. It was no wonder Silvia was as pale as watered milk.
Taking a deep breath to keep my anger from singeing everything I touched, I shook my head. “No, it is not. There is nothing wrong with your humors, sanguine or not, and those so-called doctors are doing more harm than good.”
Her hands tightened together. “What should I do?”
“The first thing is to tell your husband you’ve had enough of bloodletting.”
“I-I can’t just tell him that. He won’t heed my thoughts over those of the doctors.”
No, of course not. I kept forgetting most women did not have someone like Florindo at their side. Most women found themselves unequal to their husbands, a tier below, requiring masculine permission even to their own bodies. I couldn’t imagine my husband so much as thinking such a thing.
“Then, if you must submit to the bloodletting,” I said with a sigh, “you need to make some changes to your diet. Add more fish and stinging nettle. Drink juices made of every fruit you can find, and have your cook use the best olive oil available.”
She nodded, her eyes fixed on me as if she were afraid of missing a single syllable.
I took her hands. “The tonics I make for conception are not pleasant. They will give you nausea and even cramps for the first two or three days you take them. Some of the women I’ve helped have felt palpitations for days at a time and one had hives break out throughout her body. You may not be able to leave your home because of the necessity to use the latrine at all hours, and there are no guarantees. It could happen immediately or it could take weeks. The pregnancy may not even last very long the first time and we’d have to try again. Is that something you are willing to go through?”
“But the women you helped did conceive?”
“Yes. In the end.”
“And they had healthy children?”
“All but one. She lost the child during her confinement.”
She paused and that moment, that silent, honest consideration, was what made me certain that despite her gentleness and her self-purported cowardice, there was iron in her. She could do this.
“Yes,” she finally said. “If you’ll help me, I’m willing.”
I squeezed her hands and smiled. “Then I’ll be glad to do so, Silvia. I’ll prepare the first tonic and send it to you tomorrow.”
The sudden glint in her eyes made her look like a child who had just been promised a gift.
“All of today, I want you to drink a substantial amount of water and to have some milk tomorrow morning to prepare a base in your stomach. When will the next bloodletting be?”
“In about two weeks.”
That didn’t give me as much time to strengthen her against that idiocy as I would like, but if she followed my instructions perhaps it wouldn’t weaken her system too much.
“From tonight onward, I want you to drink a glass of red wine fortified with cinnamon and honey after your meals. As soon as the doctor departs on the day of the bloodletting, have your cook prepare you a bowl of boiled nettles and a glass of wine, no matter what time of day it is.”
She nodded.
“You’ll know your husband better than I, of course, but it may be wise not to mention any of this to him. If he becomes concerned with any effects the tonics have on you, tell him you ate something that didn’t agree with you.”
Her cheeks reddened once again as she lowered her voice. “And my relations with my husband? Is there anything . . . different that I need to do when I submit to him?”
Poor child. To think of the act as only a submission. “Continue as you have. The tonics will do their work. And if you have any concerns at all, about any of this, have a servant fetch me at once.”
Before I’d realized what she was doing, Silvia had leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me.
“Thank you,” she said.
If I’d needed any other reminder that this wasn’t Genova, this embrace would have been it. No madonna in her right mind would have shown this kind of softness in front of someone they’d only met twice. In the city, Silvia would have been a doe among wolves. I could have torn her into bits with a few sentences.
As if she had sensed my thoughts, she pulled away. “Just look at me, ready to weep at a touch of female kindness.” She sniffed. “It’s just so rare among these parts.”
Among all parts, really. “It’s quite all right. I’m glad to be of help.”
I stepped out of the carriage and closed the door.
“Oh, please send me a note with the expenses for the tonics,” Silvia said.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“At least for the ingredients!”
I shook my head. “Everything I need is already in jars and flasks up in my cucinetta, just waiting to be put to good use. The satisfaction I get for assisting someone as kind as you is plenty.”
There really was the sheen of tears in her eyes now, even as she smiled. “I’m so glad you’re here, Maddalena.”
Although I couldn’t in all honesty say the same thing, I bowed my head in acknowledgment and stepped out of the way of the carriage.
“And please don’t worry too much about these madonne and what they’ve been saying,” she called out over the crunch of the wheels. “I’m sure it will all be resolved soon.”
I waved and watched the carriage, knowing very well she was wrong. I knew how these things went, and they didn’t resolve quickly. If they ever did at all.
* * *
“Not so fast, Ugo, amore,” I said. “Do you want your mother to fall?”
“No, Mamma.”
But he didn’t slow down as he led us to the kitchen, his hand small and hot as it clutched mine. His siblings’ laughter trickled down from up ahead and he pushed his legs to move faster and catch up.
Perhaps it hadn’t been such a wise idea to ask them all to join me while I gathered herbs in the woods. All the fresh air they’d received today had been like a shock of sweets to their systems.
Well, at least Giusto would get a much-needed bit of rest. He had looked rather haggard after hours of running after them ensuring they were well away from horse hooves and plows.
We raced into the kitchen, my wicker basket swinging, and almost slammed into Octavia, who was carrying two freshly baked loaves of bread.
“Scusatemi, Octavia,” I called out as my youngest, fiercest child plunged us through the kitchen. The women stirring the cauldron at the hearth smiled and curtsied, as did one of the cuoco’s assistants, who stood by a kneading table, splashed with flour, holding a copper rolling pin. Even that new servant, Antonio, halted on his way to the cellar to watch us pass.
The door leading out to the garden gaped open and I could see my children skirting the well and the chicken coop in their race to reach the gate leading out to the woods.
“All right,” I yelled. “Do not step foot into the forest on your own.”
Like I’d yanked on reins, my voice brought the four of them to a stop. Even Ugo finally slowed.
Giacomo, Francesco, Vincenzo, and Marcellina turned to look at me, their impatience written into every part of their bodies while they waited for the two of us to catch up.
“You all know better than to go into the forest alone,” I said when I’d reached them at the gate.
“But, Mamma, you were right there,” Giacomo said.
“That makes no difference. I could get distracted and not see where you go. It is too easy to lose your way in a forest, children, and you never know what could be there waiting.”
My eldest raised his eyes to the sky with a sigh, in a way that made him look just like a fourteen-year-old version of myself. I bit back a smile.
“Will you look so bored when a boar decides to chase after you? Or when un lupo howls its hunger and snaps its fangs into your heels?”
“Mamma, per favore,” Giacomo said, the quick flick of his gaze behind him, into the trees, belying the exasperation in his voice.
Perhaps some mothers would have thought it unnecessary, even cruel, to frighten their children in that manner, but I’d rather they be frightened than dead.
I walked past them and opened the gate leading out of the garden. “Come now. With care and always minding where each of us is, let’s find some herbs.”
As soon as I stepped into the forest, I felt the whisper of the plants, a tapestry of not-quite-voices vying for attention. There would be plenty to find, I could already hear that.
“Please remember not to put anything in your mouth. Not the juiciest of berries or the most colorful of flowers.” They knew this well, having heard me say it in every outing we’d ever made, even in domesticated gardens, but it cost me nothing to repeat the warning.
The four boys started off together, their attentions already lost to things other than herbs. It had taken Francesco and Vincenzo mere seconds to find sticks suitable enough to function as swords.
Marcellina, however, shifted to my side. Just as I’d expected.
Even in Genova, I’d seen her interest in my pots growing. More than once I’d found her in the room I’d reserved for my work, standing on the tips of her toes to smell the herbs or turning the pages of my herbarium with exquisite care. I’d always left her to it, knowing how important it was for her to decide on her own if it was something that she needed. If she didn’t, she’d bore of it with or without my intrusion.
She’d shown no signs of being able to hear the herbs yet, but she was only eight. I’d been well into my eleventh year when I heard the birdlike chirp of the lemongrass in my mother’s kitchen for the first time. A simple request for water had begun my endless conversation with them all.
A steeple of powdered blue caught my eye among the grass. I smiled.
“Look, Marcellina.”
I motioned her to follow me to the first bugleherb, standing like a sentinel before a small crowd of its peers. It had a mild voice, like a breeze on a summer’s day.
“This is a marvelous find,” I said and knelt beside the cluster of small flowers stacked on fuzzy leaves. “It’s called bugleherb, and it is a light sedative, excellent for people of nervous constitutions.”
“Like Giusto,” she said.
I swallowed a chuckle. How could I tell Marcellina that the only cure for her tutor was for her brothers to behave less ferally? Even now, the noises coming from a bit farther up ahead made it sound like they were destroying the entire forest. “Quite so. It is also good for alleviating pain and can make a good tea for sore throats.”
I reached for the silver scissors hanging on the chatelaine around my waist and placed the blades near the base of the herb.
“When you harvest herbs for your use, you must leave the roots intact. If you want to take the whole plant to place it in a pot, you never yank it up, because that pains them. Instead, you want to dig a little and scoop them up, gently. Since bugleherb tends to languish in pots, I’m just going to take a bit of it.”
I snipped the stem and allowed the blue tower of flowers to fall into my palm. “Always thank the herbs when you harvest them, and never take more than you need, for there are other creatures who have use of them.”
After following my own instructions and offering my gratitude to the plant, I unhooked the scissors and handed them to Marcellina.
“Go on. Fetch me ten or so more so that I can dry them.”
She got to work at once.
I stood and peered through the trees until I could clearly see the boys. Four sets of limbs intact, no blood. All was well.
Wiping the sheen of sweat from my forehead, I watched Marcellina wielding the scissors as if she’d done so for years. She possessed the patience for herb work, taking care to look for the best specimens, the ones I would have chosen, inspecting leaves and flowers for qualities that only someone with an innate affinity could intuit.
Her soft words of thanks as she cut the herbs and the gentleness with which she placed them in my basket brought on an urge to embrace her tightly enough that she’d become part of my body once more. But I let her be. I’d not interrupt.
“Very well done, amore,” I said when she’d brought me the basket. I took the scissors as she turned toward the crashing sounds of her siblings. “You can go play with them, if you like. You’ve already been a great help.”
But she shook her head.
“All right. Let’s go up ahead, then.”
Wrangling the boys with my voice, I led all of us farther into the woods, trying not to wince at the clamor. Birds flapped into the sky with indignant cries and creatures scurried away, unseen in the weeds and tall grass. Woven through everything was the smell of pine trees and wet earth.
The familiar vibration of voices, as warm and welcoming as a parent’s, pulled my attention to a large patch of feathery leaves and lacy white flowers sitting on thin, branched stalks streaked with purple. Now here was a chance to teach Marcellina something important.
“Let’s get some cow parsley,” I said, nodding my daughter forward.
The patch of herbs was much larger than it had first appeared, with flowers shoving each other to feed on the rays of sun that made it through the canopy of needles. Some of the stems rose higher than my daughter’s head so that she had to peer up at the small star-shaped flowers.
“Listen carefully now. Cow parsley is wonderful for stomach complaints and can be useful for headaches, but it is important that you . . .” I frowned, losing the thread of words as another sound pulled at me. A low, smoke-filled voice that made me hold my breath.
I’d only heard it once before, years ago, but there was no forgetting it.
I’d truly not expected to find it here. So easily.
“Stay right where you are and don’t touch anything.”
“Mamma?”
I motioned her to stillness and eased around the edges of the patch of cow parsley, following that low voice. I peered at the plants, tracing their stems, until I found what I was searching for. The very object of the lesson I’d wanted to offer Marcellina.
Hidden among the friendly cow parsley, like a viper under fall leaves, was poison hemlock.
It quieted now that I’d seen it and I bowed my head in gratitude at its warning. I would have noticed it, but my child would not have.
Swallowing the dryness in my throat, I waved Marcellina closer and called to the boys. They should learn this as well.
They heard the tightness in my voice, for the clatter of sticks stopped at once and they were at my side in an instant. Five pair of eyes watched me as I parted two stalks of cow parsley so that they could see what death dressed in green and white looked like.
“This is poison hemlock,” I said. “It is one of the reasons I always warn you not to put anything you find in the woods in your mouth. It will kill you very quickly if you eat any part of it, even a tiny bit. What do you notice about it?”
Giacomo opened his mouth but hesitated. His sister did not.
“It looks the same as the cow parsley,” Marcellina said.
“Well done. That is exactly right. If you do not know what to look for, it appears identical. Fortunately, a few subtle differences exist.” I knelt and pointed to the stem. “No hairs on the hemlock, see? While cow parsley’s stalk is covered in fine ones that you can see or at the very least feel when you touch it. And, of course, the purple marks.”
I bent one of the cow parsleys over until they could see the solid streaks of it that ran up from the ground. I did the same with the hemlock, gently moving it with my sleeve.
“Do you see the marks on this one? They’re like splashes of color, uneven, like someone’s paintbrush splattered it.”
They nodded, almost as one.
“Most of the time, what you see will be cow parsley because it grows like a weed, but hemlock loves to grow beside it. Never pick it if you are not ready to wage your life on your choice.”
I watched their faces, making sure that they had heard me before I stood up.
“We’ll leave these be for now. Come.”
I’d return for the cow parsley without the children, so I could concentrate fully on what I was doing when I harvested it. I couldn’t depend just on hearing the herb, not with the threat of hemlock nearby.
The boys ran off without another glance, but Marcellina gazed at the two plants for a beat longer before returning to my side. We set off together.
The wooden whacks of stick against stick had already begun again. How could they still have such energy?
“Mamma,” Marcellina said after we’d walked for a bit.
“Yes, child?”
She drew a little closer to me. “The herbs speak to you, don’t they?”
I almost stopped walking.
This, I’d not been ready for yet.
No one had ever asked me the question in such a forthright manner, without skirting around it. Not even Florindo. He knew some of it, of course—it was difficult not to notice your wife nodding at the pots of rosemary or speaking about the feud between the parsley and the mint at the breakfast table with all the exasperation of a mother. He trusted that I was tuned as tightly as a harp string to the world around me and that the slightest vibration, good or ill, would ring through me. He never doubted, but he had never really asked either.
There were lies I could give Marcellina to delay this conversation until she was at least a bit older. Until I had an answer prepared.
But why? If she had taken notice of my affinity and had formulated the right question to ask me at the right moment, she deserved the truth.
“Yes,” I said. “They do. Though it’s not a conversation like you and I are having. There are no real words as we speak them, they’re more like . . . well, I always call them vibrations.”
She frowned. “Like music?”
“Yes, somewhat.”
“And the herbs tell you what they need like that?”
I nodded, shifting a pine branch out of the way. “But it’s not always a request for something. Many times, like people, they just want to say hello.”
“Is that what happened with that plant, the hemlock? It warned you it was there?”
“Yes. And it would have done the same with anyone else, it’s just that very few take the time to listen.”
Ugo let out a shriek of laughter, the sound turning my head just as Vincenzo began a strategic attack with small and still-green pinecones. Giacomo and Francesco ran to the nearest tree in search of ammunition.
“Your brothers, for example,” I said, “will likely never be quiet enough to hear the herbs. They can barely hear each other.”
Her lips pursed. “But I can’t hear them either.”
I grasped her hand, giving it a quick squeeze. “You’re still very young, Marcellina, and though I can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to do so, I can tell you already possess the most important criteria for working with herbs as I do: the ability to listen.”
I waited for more questions, but she was quiet, her brow lightly furrowed in thoughts I didn’t want to interrupt. We walked on in silence while the boys crashed about behind us.
The corner of my eye caught a blur of movement the instant before a man stepped onto our path. I did stop walking now, biting back a gasp and tightening my grip on Marcellina’s hand.
What was this, now?
Three more men walked out from behind a group of trees to join him, all of them in ragged tunics and breeches, their wide-brimmed hats flinging shadows on their features. They stood, staring at the two of us, making no attempt to explain their presence in our woods.
Standing up straighter, I fixed my eyes on the first man I’d seen. “Scusatemi, but you are on my land.”
They remained silent. My jaws clenched.
“Are you workers my husband hired? If you are, the worksite is at the mill, not here.”
The men looked at one another and smiled as if I’d said something amusing. One of them took a step closer.
The air began to pulse with a warning.
A knot in my stomach tightened, a cold splash of fear beginning to battle for dominance with my mounting anger. They knew they shouldn’t be here and they didn’t appear to care. I wanted to order them out. I knew it was within my right to do so, but I couldn’t find the words because what I also knew was that Florindo and the workers were too far away to hear us.
Fear won.
“Children,” I called, my voice echoing through the forest, and pressed Marcellina closer to my side. Once I could clutch them all to me, we’d leave. Head back to the house.
It felt like endless minutes of feeling my heart beating in my temples before I heard my eldest’s familiar footsteps nearing us.
“What now, Mamma? We’re not—” Giacomo crunched to a stop. “Who are you?”
Still, the men said nothing.
“Madre?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “They’ve refused to speak.”
There was an edge of anger in Giacomo’s movements as he came to stand next to me. He bristled with energy.
“I asked you a question,” he said. “This is our land, so who are you and what are you doing here?”
I touched my son’s arm.
“Leave. This instant,” I said.
One of the men chuckled, and I tightened my grip on Giacomo, trying to tamp down the fire that he’d inherited from me. The situation could not escalate enough to pit four grown men against a boy of fourteen. And it would if he didn’t heed me. I could feel it.
The man nearest to us turned his head just slightly and spat onto the dirt close enough to my feet that I could see the spume sink into the ground before he started off deeper into the woods. Two of the others followed him, chuckling. The last man touched the brim of his hat in an acknowledgment that dripped with mockery and left, slipping through the trees. None of them had said a single word.
I didn’t wait so much as the length of a heartbeat before moving. “Let’s go. Back to the house.”
I pulled on Giacomo and Marcellina, my basket of herbs swinging from the crook of my elbow as I hurried us toward the rest of my children. They were still flinging pinecones and laughing, having entirely missed what had happened. Later, I would deal with them not obeying my beckon, but now I needed to get us all out of the woods.
“Playing is over for today,” I said, clapping my hands. “Come now.”
Ugo groaned and Vincenzo opened his mouth in the beginning of a protest, but Giacomo shook his head once, stopping him. A wise choice.
Together, the six of us retraced our path.
As we walked, my mind fought to make sense of what had occurred, trying to calm the fear I felt by somehow rationalizing the presence of the men. But no logic could drown out what the racing of my heart and the roaring of my blood warned me of.
This was not over. We’d see those men again, and it would all be much worse than today.
I felt it with the same certainty with which I’d felt my cousin’s life running out all those years ago.