“Soon enough,” said her mother, half under her breath. Cecilia caught sight of her mother’s brown hand and forearm, as thick as one of the piglets in their courtyard back home in Siena. Cecilia felt a veil of shame and embarrassment cover the two of them sitting at the window. It was laughable, her stout, sun-speckled mother sitting here among the pale, elegant ladies of the ducal palace. What place did the two of them have here? In Siena, they held their heads high, the wife and daughter of a petitioner at the court of Milan. But here, in this northern palace, the seat of His Lordship’s domain, Cecilia and her mother passed for little more than peasants. She felt certain that she could see the women in their silk gowns snickering at them behind their gloves and fans.
How quickly her fate had turned.
Only a season ago, her future had looked entirely different. She and Giovanni Stefano Visconti were set to wed, an arrangement that had been in place since she was barely old enough to take her first steps. It was a perfect solution, her father had said, to marry their youngest, the only girl, to the Visconti, a Milanese family with a noble legacy and ties to the Sforza ducal family. Giovanni himself was nothing so remarkable, little more than a lopsided grin of a boy not yet turned to man. A dusting of freckles spread across his nose, and the wide shoulders of his father’s overcoat hung from his lanky frame, but Cecilia had been at peace with the safety and security of marrying into a respected family. The two had already had a ring ceremony to commemorate the commitment, as perfunctory and devoid of emotion as it was legally binding. But Cecilia felt secure, content even, with the arrangement. She was accustomed to being in the company of boys and men, anyway. She had grown up in the chaotic tussle of a house with six brothers. Spending the rest of her days inside a cathouse of a convent sounded like the dullest possible fate.
But only months after her father was in the ground, the magnitude of her brothers’ foolishness had come to light. There was no more hiding it. Together, her brothers had frittered away Cecilia’s dowry, squandering it on ill-advised investments, dice games, and drink. Once things were out in the open, Giovanni Visconti’s father had burned the marriage contract in front of her brothers’ own eyes at the gates to their farm.
After that, there was a letter dispatched to her eldest brother, Fazio. Within a few days, Cecilia and her mother were loaded into a small carriage rattling north toward Milan, where Fazio had promised to make things right.
“But I don’t see why I must go to the Monastero Maggiore,” Cecilia said. It came out like a childish whine and Cecilia immediately cringed. Her mother yanked a little harder than was necessary.
“Aya!” Cecilia clasped her palm to her scalp.
“You should count yourself fortunate to have such a chance, Cecilia. We have already been over this. The cloister is the perfect place for a girl like you,” her mother said firmly, ignoring her daughter’s yelp and letting another twist fall from the pile of hair on top of Cecilia’s head. Cecilia had heard the arguments; she was intelligent, fluent in Latin, knew how to write poetry and play the lute. She came from a respected family. As if she read her daughter’s mind, Signora Gallerani added, “You will be able to do all those things you love—reading and writing and playing music. And you will be a woman of purity and high regard.”
“Then I might find myself a highborn husband right here in this castle instead,” Cecilia said. She had made sure that her brothers had signed not only her marriage annulment but also attested to her maidenhood before she had departed for Milan. She knew that she was considered a great prize as a wife; the beauty of Fazio Gallerani’s only daughter and her purity were whispered about in Siena. “Surely I could use my talents to hold court in a great house instead of behind the convent walls, where I will have no audience.”
Her mother crossed her arms across her broad chest and shook her head. Then she let out a sharp laugh that made her midsection jiggle. “What pride! Where did my daughter get such high ideas? If your father were alive, he would take a switch to your legs.”
A soft knock fell on the door, then her brother’s face appeared.
“My ladies,” Fazio greeted them with a brief bow, and their mother’s face lit up. She dropped the comb onto the inlaid table alongside the bowl of vinegar and dead lice, then clapped her hands together and pressed her palms to her eldest son’s cheeks.
“My beauty,” she said, stroking her son’s face as if he were a favorite horse. Cecilia had to admit that her eldest brother, at twenty-six years old and ten years her senior, had indeed grown into a handsome, capable man worthy of more than their father’s legacy at the court of Milan.
“They are ready for us at the midday meal,” Fazio said.
“Santa Maria!” Signora Gallerani exclaimed, swiftly returning to Cecilia’s back and weaving her hair into a tight braid. “Those blasted pests have caused us to work too long.” She quickly tied the end with a leather strap. Cecilia felt the braid thump down the length of her back.
“Fazio,” Cecilia said. “If I must live here in Milan, then I want to stay here in this palace instead of a convent.”
She heard her mother let out a guffaw. “She continues to talk nonsense,” she said, picking up the comb and waving it at Cecilia as if threatening to beat her with it. “We must get her out of this overblown pile of stone as soon as possible.” She cast her eyes to the gilded and brightly painted decoration in the coffered ceiling above their heads.
Fazio laughed. “Whatever do you mean, girl?”
Cecilia looped her hand through the crook of her brother’s arm. “Surely you, with your high rank here, are in a position to find me a husband.”
“A husband!”
“Yes,” she said, patting his hand. “One with a large house and a court full of people, full of poetry and music.” She did not dare to say it out loud, but the truth was that she also saw herself richer, cleaner, more elegant, just like the women she glimpsed outside the window, those whose lives she only imagined.
Cecilia saw her brother’s face waver, and then he exchanged a wary glance with their mother.
“But it is already arranged with the sisters,” he said, his brow furrowing.
“Fazio, you know well that I could be one of the most sought-after brides in our region. Plus, you owe me a new husband after what happened with the last one!”
For a few long moments, silence hung thickly in the air.
“Vergogna!” her mother broke in. “Prideful girl!” Her mouth had formed a deep scowl. “Your brother owes you nothing! He has already done more for you than you deserve. Besides, you will see. After only a few days with the sisters, you will understand that the convent is the right place for you, Cecilia. I have already told you—I have already told the prideful girl, Fazio—you will get to do all those things you love. And most of all, you will be a woman of purity and high regard. You will bring our family honor and you will pray for your father’s eternal soul on behalf of all of us.”
Her brother, a skilled diplomat, stepped sideways. He offered his remaining arm to his mother and steered the two women toward the door. “Shall we go eat? Rice again, I’m afraid, but I saw the cook adding pomegranate arils and citrus. I’m famished.”