A Golden Web by Barbara Quick Read Free Book Online

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?”
    Pierina, who liked to think her brother loved her best,grabbed Nicco’s injured hand. “Move over, Zan—you’re blocking the light!”
    “Wasps don’t drop their stinger—just their poison.” Pushing Pierina aside, Alessandra brought Nicco’s hand up to her mouth, sucked on the swelling there, and then spat. “Let’s put some mud on it now.”
    Pierina was torn between jealousy and admiration for her sister. “We should get you a pair of red gloves, Alessandra—and then you could go about the parish, selling cures.”
    Nicco added, “And sniffing the urine of everyone who complains of feeling ill.”
    “And casting their horoscope!” Pierina was terribly glad that Nic seemed to be taking her part.
    Alessandra, ignoring both of them, was digging around the roots of the tree, looking for some damp earth.
    “Are you going to do it or not, Zan? It hurts like hell.”
    Done teasing, Pierina knelt down beside her sister. “What are you looking at?”
    “This.” Alessandra’s digging had revealed another oak apple, much like the others. But this one was growingout of the roots of the tree. She dropped it when she felt something moving about inside it.
    All four knelt down to watch a wasp crawl out of the little hole in the dry gall, and walk on its insect legs up the roots toward the trunk of the tree.
    Nicco scooped up a little mud and put it over the place where he’d been stung. “Hell of a doctor you’d make, Alessandra!” He made to tromp on the wasp, but Alessandra pushed his foot aside.
    “Look at it, Nic! It doesn’t have any wings.”
    “Well, neither do we, in case you haven’t noticed. We have to get a move on, if we’re to make it back on time for dinner.”
     
    While they were trudging home, with the baskets full and their hands stained brown, Alessandra suggested they stop in the orchard to pick up a fig branch that could be used to stir the oak apples while they soaked in the sun—and to eat a few figs, if there were any ripe ones.
    “Hush!” said Pierina. They heard the sound of hooves along the road. “Can you make out their colors?”
    Nicco, who had the best eyes among them, squintedinto the distance. “They’re neither one nor the other faction. They’re—” He picked up his basket. “Hurry up, you three! They’re traders! Let’s go see what they’ve got for us!”
    The traders had come all the way from La Magna.