After the meal, she waited until everyone else had left the kitchen-and then walked across the pa.s.sageway, back into her father's scriptorium.

It was a threefold treat for her senses, going from the fragrance of cloves and roasted meat and woodsmoke to the blast of cold, sage-scented air in the stone pa.s.sageway to the sweet smell of ink and the acrid, sulfurous tang of the gesso ges...o...b..ing mixed by the latest set of apprentices, two eight-year-old twin boys from Lombardy. being mixed by the latest set of apprentices, two eight-year-old twin boys from Lombardy.

She walked up quietly behind Old Fabio to watch him as he hunkered over the vellum folio, applying gold leaf to an illumination of the Adoration of the Magi. The set of pages were part of a commission for a Little Book of Hours her father had won after an evening of drinking with the Bishop. Dank early mornings were the best, she'd heard, for the application of gold leaf-and this was just such a morning.

Old Fabio used the gilder's tip to pick up a piece of gold that had been pounded so thin that it was practically not of the material world anymore. Alessandra didn't dare even breathe as he let it float down to the red silk gilder's cushion, where it settled like a shimmering slick of precious oil.

"May I blow it flat?" she whispered.

"Madonna mia!" said the illuminator, nearly jumping out of his chair. "I thought you were the Angel of Death, come to take me!" said the illuminator, nearly jumping out of his chair. "I thought you were the Angel of Death, come to take me!"

"I'm sorry!"

"And look what you've made me do! The gold has floated away."

"It's here," said Alessandra, from her hands and knees on the floor. "May I have the gilder's brush, Maestro Maestro?"

Old Fabio clucked his tongue but gave her the tool, as he knew his knees were too stiff to allow him to go searching underneath his desk. "Don't break it!"

Alessandra touched the tiny brush to the escaped piece of pounded gold, as delicate as an insect's wing. She cupped her other hand around it and held her breath as she dropped it onto the bloodred silk of the tiny cushion. "There it is."

The illuminator raised his chin to look at her. "Well done, Signorina Signorina."

Alessandra smiled. She liked being good at things-especially things she wasn't expected to be good at.

"Blow on it, if you want to-but gently!"

The little wrinkles in the golden wing were smoothed out in the current of Alessandra's warm breath. Old Fabio took his knife and cut a crescent out from it for the Christ child's halo. "Breathe harder now on the place on the page where it goes-just there. Breathe on the infant Jesus."

Alessandra blew her warm breath on Christ to make the pink, crescent-shaped spot of gesso gesso around his head soft enough to receive the gold. Then she pulled back and watched, holding her breath, while the gold came floating down from the gilder's brush, seeming to jump into place, as if it knew exactly where it belonged. Old Fabio covered it quickly with a piece of silk and pushed on the halo with his cracked and blackened thumb. around his head soft enough to receive the gold. Then she pulled back and watched, holding her breath, while the gold came floating down from the gilder's brush, seeming to jump into place, as if it knew exactly where it belonged. Old Fabio covered it quickly with a piece of silk and pushed on the halo with his cracked and blackened thumb.

"Finish it up, if you want to try." He handed her the burnishing tool, a dog's tooth mounted on a wooden handle. "Delicate but strong-there's the way."

Alessandra stood over the folio in which the Christ child had suddenly come to life.

"You've a good hand, my girl. You could do any job in this workshop and do it well. Not like that brother of yours!"

Alessandra looked at her hands, a child's hands still, smooth and dimpled and as yet unmarked by life. She was glad they were good hands. She breathed on them in the cold morning air of the workshop, as if they too would suddenly shine gold with the certainty of her own future and whatever brightness it held.

Alessandra was careful, after the grim bonfire in the square and the flesh-scented days following, to please her stepmother-at least, to the extent that Ursula would allow herself to be pleased by her least favorite among her husband's children.

Carlo left for several days on a business trip to Bologna, and Ursula took advantage of his absence to give Alessandra tasks she would never dare give her otherwise. So while Pierina sat by the kitchen fire, helping Cook put up apples to dry, Alessandra was sent to the well with the two buckets balanced, one at each end of the rod that hurt her back and neck even while the buckets were empty.

It was one thing for the servant, who was broad and well padded and could have fit two of Alessandra inside her, to fetch the water. But Alessandra embraced the task without complaint, taking it as an intellectual as well as a physical challenge.

Nicco caught her as she crouched beneath the weight of the two full buckets, her back to the well, hanging on tight with both hands to the rod that was braced across her shoulders. He stopped her just as she was about to use her f.a.n.n.y to shove the well bucket, tied to the rod as a counterbalance, over the edge and into the well.

"Are you trying to drown yourself? Surely there's an easier way."

Alessandra picked herself up from the ground, where she'd fallen after Nicco untied the rope and the counter-weight was gone. "I'm trying to haul water, as I've been ordered."

"Who would dare order a shrimp like you to carry the water?"

"Who do you think?"

Nicco, broad shouldered and well built for a lad of fourteen, grunted as he lifted the full buckets in the air and let the rod come to rest behind his head, holding on to the ends with his meaty hands. "You should have called me."

"I thought I could devise a way to do it myself."

Nicco grinned. "The world will be a better place because of you, Alessandra, if you're able to stay alive long enough to do even half of what you cook up inside that brilliant heart of yours."

As they walked along, Alessandra brushed absently at the water sloshing over her from the closest bucket. "Don't you wonder, Nic, how the rest of our body hears our thoughts as the heart thinks them, and knows what to do?"

"Why should I bother myself about such a b.l.o.o.d.y stupid thing?" Nic grunted again as he lowered the brace of buckets onto the kitchen threshold.

Ursula was standing in the doorway when they opened it, as if she'd been waiting for them. "I told Alessandra to fetch the water."

"Yes, you did, Madame!" Nicco put his arm around his sister's shoulder. "It made as much sense as it would for me to put my saddle on my dog and try to ride him."

"Do you dare defy me, Niccol?" Ursula was a tall woman, but not quite as tall as Nicco. She raised herself up to her full height and held her head high as she spoke to him.

"Know, Madame, that I will defend my sister if anyone misuses her."

He and Ursula stared at each other, neither hazarding to utter another word. Alessandra, roused from her own thoughts, looked up at them, from face to face, locked in combat as surely as if they'd been trading blows.

"Have an apple, anyone?" Pierina piped up from the fire. When Nicco and Ursula continued to glare at each other, unmoving, she added in a smaller voice, "They're awfully nice this year."

The dog started barking, there was the sound of horses, and the servant ran out from the stable. Carlo, accompanied by a stranger, was back from Bologna.

Two riders came abreast of the house, the master on his high horse and someone unknown riding a brindled donkey. When the stranger removed his cloak and hood, it was clear that he was not much more than a boy, though he looked tall-about the same age and height, in fact, as Nicco.

"Husband," Ursula said, lowering her eyes, perhaps to conceal the anger in them.

"By G.o.d!" Carlo bellowed. "It's good to be home." He reached down to chuck Alessandra under the chin. "Are those tears, my pet?"

Alessandra took his cloak, freeing him to fold her in his arms. "All is well, Papa."

"Nicco? It's going well, my boy?" They clasped each other by the shoulder.

"Have you brought a new playmate for us, Father?" Nicco said with a friendly smile for the boy on the donkey.

Carlo laughed-it was a sound that filled his children with the conviction that all was right with the world. He slapped the parcel that seemed about to burst the seams of the saddlebag. "I've brought the text and drawings for a fine, new medical book we're going to publish, plus a scribe and artist who will please Old Fabio mightily. This is Giorgio da Padova, a newly minted journeyman, and as fine an illuminator as I've seen in many years."

Pierina had by then come out from the kitchen and was wiping her hands on her apple-stained ap.r.o.n. "Giorgio da Padova," she said dreamily.

"Are you a parrot?" snapped Ursula. "Excuse our rudeness, young sir. We are simple country folk here." Ursula held herself beautifully tall, with a bearing to dispel anyone's notion that she was anything other than the wife of a rich and powerful man. "Welcome to our home."

He began to answer her-he opened his mouth to answer her. But the words wouldn't come, so that Alessandra wondered if the lad was mute. He reddened as they waited for his reply, as he opened his mouth and closed it again. He reminded Alessandra of a hungry bird. And then he managed to speak, although it was little more than a stammer and the words took ages to come out of him, and only with the greatest difficulty, as if he were cold and shivering. "I t-t-t-thank y-y-y-you, m-m-m-y l-l-l-l-!"

"Well," interrupted Ursula, looking quizzically at her husband. "We will not worry about you chattering idly instead of working."

Giorgio looked as if he wanted to answer, but only smiled instead.

"Welcome, Giorgio!" said Nicco, helping him off his donkey and patting him on the back. "I expect you'd like a wash and a rest after that long ride."

Six

Carlo was right: Giorgio da Padova's skill as a miniaturist was astonishing. And he not only made charming decorations, rich in color and detail, but added an element that no other illuminator had ever attempted in the workshop before: He gathered things from the natural world and painted them in such a lifelike way, in the borders and twining around the fancy first letters, that one had to look twice and even touch the page to a.s.sure oneself that these were only drawings of ivy and wild strawberries, fern fronds and mussel sh.e.l.ls, and not the real things. astonishing. And he not only made charming decorations, rich in color and detail, but added an element that no other illuminator had ever attempted in the workshop before: He gathered things from the natural world and painted them in such a lifelike way, in the borders and twining around the fancy first letters, that one had to look twice and even touch the page to a.s.sure oneself that these were only drawings of ivy and wild strawberries, fern fronds and mussel sh.e.l.ls, and not the real things.

Carlo hoped to inst.i.tute another innovation with the addition of Giorgio to his workshop. Some copies of books were being made now in which each separate folio was numbered sequentially. The thing took a lot of planning, putting the numbers on the pages before they were cut up and a.s.sembled. But students-especially those in the law school-were extolling the superior merits of these books, in which a given part of the text could be referred to and found again and again, even by someone who had never read the book before. This "pagination," as it was called, also improved the system whereby authorized editions of books were divided into pieces and rented out to students for copying. To know where one had left off and was to begin again saved any amount of confusion and wasted time.

Old Fabio had sworn that he'd never consent to number pages, calling it the work of the Devil. But this Giorgio-young and open as the young are to new ideas-had simply narrowed his eyes, thinking it over for a moment, then smiled brightly at his new master. The trick, he knew, would be to paginate the books he worked on without offending Old Fabio.

Alessandra and Nicco took double delight in their outings together now, when they were able to slip away, looking for ever more admirable objects to bring back for Giorgio to copy. And unlike Old Fabio, Giorgio could really be a friend to them, always ready with a smile and happy to listen to their talk when he was working on artwork rather than text. Fabio always went home to eat dinner at his own house, with his old wife, who was as wrinkled as one of last winter's apples. Whatever apprentices were in the workshop boarded with him and his wife, where Fabio could keep a strict eye on them.

But Giorgio slept in an alcove near the workshop fire and was invited every day to dine at his master's table, sitting as often as not wedged comfortably on the bench between Nicco and Pierina.

Walking undetected into the workshop one day while Giorgio was there alone, Pierina was astonished to overhear him singing-in a rich, warm, and winsome voice-without stammering at all.

The sense of betrayal she felt was awful. How the entire family had coddled him and petted him. How they had trusted and confided in him! "I can't believe it! You-of such goodness and honesty. You've been deceiving us all this time!"

"I-I-I-," began Giorgio.

"Oh, stop it, stop it!" Pierina held her hands over her ears. "How can you think me so stupid?"

Blushing and stammering both, Giorgio finally managed to say that his ability to sing without stammering was a mystery he couldn't account for.

The process of telling his story took time-and a great deal of patience on Pierina's part. But the telling and the hearing of that story was the start of a powerful bond between them.

Giorgio had always stammered, ever since he could remember. And he had always been able to sing without stammering at all. Because he had first sung in church, the thing was counted as proof of his vocation for the priesthood. But he knew-and his friends knew-that he could sing without stammering even if he was singing a bawdy drinking song.

Once the secret was out, Pierina and her siblings went to great lengths to coerce or trick Giorgio into singing, as all of them reveled in the marvel of the fluency of his voice when raised in song.

He could be counted on to sing when he wanted to say something quickly-as when Dodo was about to touch an illumination that was not yet dry, or when one of the apprentices nearly trod on a cache of hen's eggs, destined for tempera, wrapped in a piece of linen. Both picture and eggs would have been spoilt if Giorgio had taken the time he would have needed to speak his warning.

Pierina, who also loved to sing, suddenly found excuses to spend time in the workshop-a place that had held little enough attraction for her previously, when Old Fabio was the only artist there. She would come down from the second floor of the house with a basket of beans to sh.e.l.l or a bit of embroidery she was working on.

When Ursula demanded to know why she had to go downstairs to do her needlework, Pierina would use the excuse that she was copying one of Giorgio's designs. She was usually able to get Giorgio to sing a caccia caccia with her, alternating, depending on who knew the song best, who was the leader and who the follower. Sometimes the other scribes chimed in, and then the workshop was a merrier place than it had ever been before. If students were there copying, they either joined the song or roundly told the singers to shut up, depending on the text they were working on and the mood it had put them in. with her, alternating, depending on who knew the song best, who was the leader and who the follower. Sometimes the other scribes chimed in, and then the workshop was a merrier place than it had ever been before. If students were there copying, they either joined the song or roundly told the singers to shut up, depending on the text they were working on and the mood it had put them in.

Carlo understood that he'd found a gem in this young illuminator, whose work had already been much in demand when he was a freelance ill.u.s.trator and scribe in Bologna. With two accomplished artists in his employ, Carlo could seize the opportunities that abounded now, between the rapidly growing call for textbooks and the rising number of n.o.bles and other wealthy families who counted books-lavishly ill.u.s.trated and gorgeously bound-as a mark of wealth and status. As treasures to be pa.s.sed on from one generation to the next, right there alongside the family jewels.

One morning in August, Carlo sent the children out to gather oak apples, the small, hard, fruitlike tumors that grow on the trunks and branches of oak trees. Slowly cooked in water and mixed with ferrous earth from Spain, the ground-up oak galls made for an excellent and free supply of black ink. A long-sought-after commission for a Book of Hours for Romeo Pepoli (destined as a wedding present for his nephew's bride-to-be) had tripled the demand for ink in the Giliani workshop, and a great new batch was needed right away. The apprentices and all the servants were busy mixing pigment, making gesso gesso, and sc.r.a.ping parchment-and so the four children were pressed into service.

Nicco was happy, as the day of gathering oak apples meant that he was excused from his morning lessons.

Even Emilia had been pressed into service in the workshop that day, and fretted because the children would have no one to look after them but Nicco. She sent him off with strict instructions to watch out for any riders wearing the colors of the Guelfs, who had lately arrested two men of the Ghibelline party in a nearby town. Nicco rolled his eyes but nonetheless promised Emilia to sound the hunting horn if they were in distress, watch over the girls, and make sure Dodo wasn't stung by any late-emerging wasps that hadn't yet flown from the galls that served as their nurseries.

"Why is we Ghibellines?" Dodo wanted to know as they made their way down the dusty pathway, the autumn air filled with the smell of dry leaves and woodsmoke.

"We're with the Emperor," explained Pierina, "while the Guelfs are the Pope's party."

"You know," said Alessandra, "it does seem odd, doesn't it? I asked Papa, and he said it's ever been the same, even before our great-great-grandparents were born. The Pope's men and the Emperor's men, battling it out, killing each other for hundreds of years. And still there's always a new Emperor, when the old one dies, and always a new Pope, and nothing changes."

"Keeps everyone busy," said Nicco.

They walked down to the stand of oak trees that grew near the post road, past the margins of their land, and looked all around them for riders or even the dust of riders.

But there was no one on the road, neither Guelfs nor Ghibellines. There was only the sound of cicadas and, occasionally-to their great relief-the wind in the trees.

Nicco hiked Dodo up onto his shoulders, from where he could reach higher than any of them, while Pierina and Alessandra guided him from down below. The oak apples that were not yet ready for gathering were still inhabited by wasps.

"Not that one, Dodo!" said Alessandra when she saw him reaching for one that still looked full. "Get the one that has a hole in it, right next to it!"

"Eek-not that one!" said Pierina. "The wasp is just coming out!"

Domenico, a sensible boy even at the tender age of four, pulled his hand away.

Nicco put his brother back on the ground and climbed up into the lower branches of the tree. "Hold the basket over your head, Zan!" He stripped the hard, silvery gray fruits, the size of small, misshapen plums, off the leaves and twigs by the handful. They fell into the basket with the sound of hail. "Ouch!"

"Did you get stung?" said Pierina.

"It's nothing."

"Come down," said Alessandra. "Let's put some mud on it."

"I'll get some of these lower ones," Pierina urged. "Do come down!"

Nicco gave in to his sisters' tender ministrations and jumped to the ground. "Can you see the stinger?"