The only person present at the lecture who was really unhappy about the turn events had taken-apart from the a.s.sistant who'd cut himself-was a big-boned, freckled youth from Lombardia, newly rich and as torn up as the corpse itself with jealousy.

Alessandra could not live as freely as she had before. She was grateful she'd felt rich enough, upon her arrival at Mondino's, to pay her room and board for six months in advance. It was unnerving nonetheless to feel that, at any time, Bene might choose to denounce her. But, after a few weeks of feeling anxious about the precariousness of her situation, Alessandra was caught up in the heady joy of being immersed in the very thick of the best learning environment in all of Europe for what she most wanted to study.

Even the knowledge that Otto-the one man to whom she'd ever truly felt drawn in a romantic way-lived just on the other side of a wall from her, ate at the same table with her, and seemed to take every opportunity he could to study, sit, or walk by her side, receded into the background of all the other details of her daily life. She forgot for hours at a time that she was anyone other than Sandro, student par excellence par excellence and trusted a.s.sistant to Mondino de' Liuzzi. Alessandra Giliani, the girl from Persiceto, began to seem a distant memory-rather like Pierina, Dodo, Nic, and the entire family from the life she'd left behind. and trusted a.s.sistant to Mondino de' Liuzzi. Alessandra Giliani, the girl from Persiceto, began to seem a distant memory-rather like Pierina, Dodo, Nic, and the entire family from the life she'd left behind.

Alessandra had a favorite spot in a little garden near the Piazza di Porta Ravegnana, nestled improbably between the rival towers of the Asinelli and the Garisenda. The garden was filled with flowers in summertime and had a mossy marble bench near a little pond, where water had been diverted from the ca.n.a.l across the square. The lock on the garden gate was broken. And although many people pa.s.sed by the Two Towers every day, it seemed that no one thought of sitting in the garden, which was always empty, as if it somehow tended itself.

It was a perfect spot to sit and read when she'd rented part of a book: quiet and fresh and sheltered from the wind. Alessandra wondered if the n.o.bles who lived in the towers ever looked down and saw her there-for she would have been visible from high above. But if they did, they never lodged an objection to the slender youth who sat and read and wrote and thought, there in that little patch of Nature in the very heart of the city with its two hundred towers that rose like a forest of trees.

One day when Alessandra raised her eyes from the text she was reading, she saw a partially made spider's web backlit by the morning sun. Every strand was visible and shone as if made of the finest threads of gold. The spider itself was small but delineated-because of the lighting-more clearly than she had ever seen a spider before. She watched as its silvery legs spun round and round in the bright light, as if each leg were in itself a separate living creature. It was indeed spinning its web: She'd never fully understood the significance of the phrase before. And she was dumbfounded by the intricate cleverness of it, this work that was far more skillful than that of any human weaver.

And yet it was only a spider-the very same kind she often killed without remorse, thinking only that it was far better to kill the spider than to be bitten by it while she was sleeping. This worker of miracles. This master artisan. This minuscule, animated jewel-like part of G.o.d's creation.

Alessandra worked hard to keep her changing body well hidden from everyone, but her growing b.r.e.a.s.t.s were more and more difficult to hide beneath the length of cloth she wound around her chest, binding it as tight as she could without constricting her breathing. It was especially irksome in the summertime and the harvest season, when it made her sweat. Sometimes, while she wrapped the cloth around herself, she thought how like a shroud it was, as if she were being prepared for burial while still alive.

She bought great quant.i.ties of cloth every month, not only to bind her b.r.e.a.s.t.s but also to catch the b.l.o.o.d.y flux that came out her opening every time the moon was full.

It seemed to be a rule of life, Alessandra noticed, that people saw only what they expected to see. The magicians and conjurors who performed every day in the Piazza Maggiore depended on it-as did perhaps some of the more publicly renowned miracle workers and saints (although Alessandra would never have voiced this opinion aloud).

She might have wondered what truths she herself was failing to see because of the tyranny of her own expectations-but she could not see these in herself any more than the spinning spider could see the process of its weaving.

Bene certainly scowled at her even more than usual. But it seemed that the gold had sufficed to buy his silence. From the day of his windfall and their return from Barbiano, he took to eating his meals away from home. He didn't greet her if they pa.s.sed each other in the city, turning away as if he failed to see her. After a while, Alessandra didn't think much about Bene at all.

She was very much taken up with her studies. Frustrated with the leaden translations of the ancient masters, she worked side by side with Otto to copy out the truest and most accurate renderings among the different versions they found. She was always buying candles and working by their light in her little room, far into the night.

Otto was showing himself to be a rival for Emilia in his tender care of Alessandra. He often brought her lovely things to eat from his favorite taverns-pots of bubbling stew and delicious pasta, delicately flavored broth and loaves of bread to keep her strong and well, despite all the meals she managed to miss through staying late after lectures and engaging in learned disputations.

She thought how lucky she was to have such a friend. More than once she caught Otto looking at her in such an ardent way that, in time, she came to be convinced that he had fallen in love with Sandro.

The thought of this left her strangely confused. She would not have guessed him to be one of those men who prefer the love of their own gender-but how did one tell, really? The ancients seemed to have taken such love in stride, especially when it was between an older man and a younger one. Beauty was beauty, after all, no matter whether the possessor of it was male or female.

The Church, of course, took quite a different view. Alessandra thought that if she ever were to love a man, she would want him to be just like Otto. She admired him in so many ways, finding in him not only a n.o.bility of spirit but also a kindness that seemed quite remarkable. He was beautiful as well in face and body-strong and well made, yet graceful. It pained her, in these moments, to think that he might not-as a man who preferred men-be able to return her feelings, even if she could unmask herself to him.

And yet she knew that very unmasking might well mark the end of his affection for her!

When he sat with her, late into the night-as they pa.r.s.ed Latin together and she could feel the heat of him so close to her-her head swam with the frustration and unfairness of it. More than once she leaned so close that her lips nearly brushed his cheek. But every time she stopped herself, pushing herself up from the bench where they sat to go outside and gulp the cool night air-or simply telling Otto that she was too sleepy to study anymore.

Then she'd lie in her bed alone, thinking about him-there, just on the other side of the wall.

Things were going more beautifully for Alessandra at Mondino's than she ever could have hoped.

She treasured the atmosphere that supported her academic aspirations while also letting her drink at the well of family life. Everyone there, with the exception of Bene, treated Sandro with kindness and affection. Otto was especially generous, with his wealth as well as his time. He always included Sandro in the lavish dinners he arranged in town for the slightest reason-a saint's day or acing an examination. He shared books with Sandro, sat by him at lectures, talked about life and philosophy, and joked with him as men are wont to do when they spend a great deal of time together.

One Sunday afternoon, sitting side by side on a bank overlooking a stream in Barbiano, Otto confided his fears about the marriage his father had arranged for him. Alessandra started-it was the first she'd heard anything about Otto's betrothal.

"I just don't know," he told Sandro, "whether it will suit me, living in such close proximity to someone I've never even met before. And not only a sheltered girl from the country, but one who has spent the last year in a silent convent. What sort of conversation can such a girl offer me?"

Sitting next to Alessandra, Otto couldn't see her eyes grow wide.

She told herself that there were thousands of girls destined for marriage who were shut away in silent convents to await their wedding day. It was true enough that her father did business with Otto's family. But she knew, from what she'd seen with her own eyes on her fifteenth name day, that her parents had promised her to a man who was, in Nicco's words, an "old git."

How she envied this girl who, when Otto was done with school, would sit by the fire with him at night, hear his confidences, and share his bed.

"Well," she said aloud, "I would guess that she'd be hungry for conversation, after all that silence!"

Otto laughed. "Would that she had even half the wit you do-although there's precious little chance of that!" He tossed a pebble into the stream below them, watching the ripples it made. "All the girls paraded before me by my parents have been particularly docile and dull."

"But you approved this one."

Otto shook his head, then leaned it back against Alessandra's shoulder. She could tell that he had bathed and washed his hair. He was the cleanest man she'd ever known. The smell and the proximity of him were intoxicating.

"I didn't approve her." He sighed. "I haven't even met her."

Alessandra barely dared to move. "And yet you're promised to her?"

"I put the matter into my father's hands. I was tired of the spectacle of all those disappointed girls-and anxious to be off to school again."

"But you..." Alessandra hesitated. "You like girls, don't you, Otto?"

Otto jumped up as suddenly as if he'd been stung by a bee. "Of course I do!" He and Alessandra looked at each other long and hard, and then Otto looked away. "Of course I do!"

He sat down beside her again, but with more distance between them.

Alessandra in her turn threw a pebble into the stream. "Do you think, Otto, that you could ever like-a bookish girl?"

"I've never met one! But if I did..." He elbowed Alessandra gently in the ribs. "And if she were comely-well, then! Such a girl would have to run very fast to escape me!"

Alessandra leaped out of the way just in time to avoid being tackled by Otto. The leap turned into a game of tag between them, jumping back and forth across the stream until Alessandra's foot slipped and she landed up to her waist in the icy water. When Otto, laughing, extended his hand to help her out, she pulled him in after her. Half choking with laughter and each tripping over the other's limbs, they splashed and dunked each other until their clothes and hair were sodden. Otto pulled at Alessandra's sleeve as she tried to make her escape-and the fabric of it ripped noisily.

"I'm sorry!" he said. "I'll buy you a new-" He stopped midphrase as the fabric fell away, exposing her naked shoulder...and the cloth wrapped tightly around her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

He grabbed at her arms as if she were about to wash downstream. Alessandra, seeing what he saw, gave up on trying to cover herself again. She held herself straight and tall and looked up into Otto's eyes. "I am still myself," she said. "And I hope to G.o.d I am still your friend!"

He shook her then, so hard at first that she feared he was reacting much as Bene had-and her heart filled with dread. But then he was hugging her close to him, alternately patting her back and caressing her damp, curling hair. "Oh, I cannot tell you-" He was half laughing, half crying, and the effect was such that she couldn't tell what he was saying. "I thought-I wondered...," he stammered, until finally she tilted her face upwards, grabbed his shoulders, and kissed him on the mouth.

"Sweet Otto!"

"Oh, my sweet-but who are you, my changeling?"

She kissed him again, and he kissed her back, this time with such tenderness that they both felt on fire although they were standing up to their ankles in the stream.

"Who would you have me be?" she asked him, pushing him far enough away so that they weren't kissing anymore, but close enough so that they might do so again at any moment.

Otto caressed her cheek in a way he hadn't dared-and hadn't wanted to-when he thought she was a boy. "I would have you be the girl my parents chose for me."

"And what is the name of that fortunate female?" she asked him, hardly daring to breathe.

He ran a hand through her chestnut curls and down her neck and over her naked shoulder, admiring its shape. "She is the daughter of the stationer Giliani of Persiceto. Her Christian name is Alessandra."

The love that Alessandra felt for her Papa in that moment-her wise, wonderful, brilliant Papa-lit her face like a sunrise. "You are betrothed to Alessandra Giliani?"

"I am, alas-but I will not marry her!"

"Oh, never say that, Otto!"

"But I love you!"

Alessandra kissed him again. "If you love me, you must promise to marry no one but Alessandra Giliani."

Otto looked at her, hope also dawning in his face and clearly doing battle there with doubt that such a thing-such a marvelous thing-could possibly be real. He began to speak but she hushed him, putting her hand over his mouth. "Promise me!"

He removed her hand, turned it over, and kissed her upturned palm. "I promise that I will marry no one but you!"

"That will have to do then." She stole another kiss, savoring the taste of him-and then broke away and ran back toward the house, covering her naked skin as best she could in Sandro's sodden clothes.

Thirteen

Mondino was about to leave Sandro alone with a windfall corpse that had just come to him from the hospital. They were by the river. It was early morning and the sky was bright but cold. that had just come to him from the hospital. They were by the river. It was early morning and the sky was bright but cold.

The body was that of a prost.i.tute who died in childbirth. No one knew her-or, at least, no one would admit to knowing her. The hospital sold her body to Mondino to raise money for her newly orphaned child, who had been cut out of his mother when she died too soon to deliver him.

"I must change my clothes and make sure the runner has done his work," said Mondino. But then he saw the look on his young a.s.sistant's face. "Are you all right?"

Alessandra bit her lip and tried to look professional. "My mother, G.o.d rest her soul, died in just the same way when my little brother was delivered."

"A gruesome business! I would not myself be a woman for all the world."

"Magister..." Alessandra waylaid him before he left to spread the word in the medical school that he'd be doing a dissection. "When a woman is so exhausted from her labor that she's in danger of dying, couldn't the babe be cut out of her then, while both are still alive?" Alessandra waylaid him before he left to spread the word in the medical school that he'd be doing a dissection. "When a woman is so exhausted from her labor that she's in danger of dying, couldn't the babe be cut out of her then, while both are still alive?"

"Only if the babe is a future king will a woman be ripped open before she's dead-because such a cut could only kill her."

"But if we knew more precisely where to cut, and where not to cut-wouldn't it be possible then?" Alessandra thought of a completely different childhood for herself, in which her mother had lived.

"It would take a miracle or black magic," said Mondino. "Certain midwives boast of having done it-but any man of science is wise to keep his distance from the likes of them." He clapped Alessandra on the back. "Carry on, Sandro! Get her ready and cover her up until I return with the hordes."

That night, after the dissection, Alessandra stayed up late in her room, writing in her notebook. She meant to go to bed. But then she woke, very stiff and cold, the remnants of a dream sticking to her like cobwebs.

There were two rivers, one bloodred and the other blue. There was an island in the center where the rivers crossed. The island was teeming with animal life, although Alessandra couldn't recognize any of the creatures there. But she could tell from the pulse of the place that it was indeed filled with living things-with life itself. The rivers were wide where the island parted them, but each one branched out in scores of tributaries, bloodred and blue, into streams of diminishing size with the smallest as fine as a spider's leg.

The oddest thing about these rivers was that they ran both ways, back and forth to the island, like a living tide.

She shook herself more fully awake-and then felt her way out of her room and into the kitchen to relight her candle. Maxie was sitting there, alone by the fire, doing a bit of sewing. She nearly pitched her little piece of embroidery into the flames when she jumped up to greet Alessandra.

"Sandro! You're still awake."

Alessandra's eyes were hurting. She mustered a smile for Maxie. "As are you! It's late and rather dark for needlework, isn't it?"

Maxie had hidden whatever she was working on behind her back. It seemed to be an embroidered pen-case. "I couldn't sleep-and I didn't want to wake my sister."

"You're a good girl."

"Do you think so?" Maxie's eyes were shining. "Papa told me that you're doing wonderfully well-he has great hopes for you!"

This was, of course, welcome news. Alessandra planned to pet.i.tion the following year, if she could keep up the pace of her work, for admission to the medical school. Mondino's support would ensure her success-or at least Sandro's.

She sighed, thinking about the sweetness of Otto's kisses-and wondering if she would ever be able to be her true self in the world again.

In the dancing shadows from the fire, Maxie sat back down and patted the place on the bench next to her. "Come sit awhile! It must be cold in your room."

Alessandra looked down at her fingernails; they were blue, and she shivered. "It's quite cold there now. Do you know if Otto has returned from town yet?"

Maxie's expression changed. "Oh, Otto!" she said peevishly. "I suppose your room is less cold when he spends time there with you."

"It is much warmer and pleasanter here right now-believe me!" Alessandra plunked herself down on the bench and gave Maxie a friendly kiss on the cheek.

She realized too late the mistake she'd made. Maxie's breathing became rapid and shallow, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes were suddenly swimming in tears. "Sandro!" She breathed the name rather than spoke it. "My most beloved!" She threw herself at Alessandra, pressing her lips to Alessandra's lips, caressing her cheeks and shoving her eager little b.r.e.a.s.t.s against the binding cloth beneath Alessandra's chemise.

Alessandra pushed the girl away from her like a swimmer pushing away from the sh.o.r.e.

Maxie began to cry. "I thought-"