A Golden Web by Barbara Quick Read Free Book Online Page A

What they had turned out to be lapis lazuli, brought over a year of traveling by camel and horse, passed from the hand of one herdsman to another and paid for in blood and gold, all the way from the mountain caliphates of Greater Khorasan. Carlo was beside himself with happiness. This was just in time for the prodigious need they were going to have for aquamarine. He’d been prepared to scrape the pigment off any old manuscripts he could get his hands on, so rare was the gemstone these days, with so many brigands along the roads and so many people willing to pay such a high price for the only color befitting the Virgin’s robes and the skies of Heaven. He made the traders promise to pass his way again the following year.
    Yes, he was sure that his fortune was made now and his children would be safe. This was a sign from God.
     
    It seemed to Alessandra that Ursula had loosened her hold on her or, much to her delight, had somehow forgotten about her. She grew enough that year to ride the little gelding kept by Carlo’s groom. She never learned to ride as well as Nicco—but, still, she learned to ride well enough and to wear her brother’s clothes with such confidence that the neighbors—always alert to anything new—took her for an apprentice or cousin or some other young male hanger-on at the Gilianis’.
    Alessandra was learning about the world of Nature from her brother, and how to draw from Giorgio, and she continued to read whenever light and time allowed. Her heart was full and her cheeks were rosy, and a happier girl could not have been found in the province when the family gathered around the table on her saint’s name day, to celebrate the end of her thirteenth year.
    Ursula, smiling with uncharacteristic serenity, raised her goblet to Alessandra.
    “Fourteen,” she said, taking a sip of her wine. “The age when girls must be kept inside.”
    Alessandra felt herself go pale.
    “The age,” continued Ursula, still smiling, “when girlsmust be kept even from looking out windows or doors. When they must be kept safely apart from all young men.” Here she looked at Nicco. “Even their brothers.”
    “ Amore ,” said Carlo. “Where do you get these ideas?”
    “From the Holy Father,” said Ursula. “It is my duty to protect your daughter’s virtue, and I will see that it is done. No matter what—” Here she looked at all of them, one by one. “No matter what anyone says, as God is my witness!”
     
    Alessandra never appreciated her freedom until it was taken away. Her father’s house—so long a haven of learning and a source of comfort—was transformed by her stepmother’s zealous oversight into a barrier between Alessandra and all the wonders and pleasures of the outside world.
    Nicco and Pierina could come and go as they pleased, so long as they got their work done. Even Dodo, free to romp unsupervised in the garden, was allowed more license than Alessandra. Ursula barred her from the scriptorium, citing the frequent presence of students there—and made sure she kept Alessandra occupied with housework, far from the schoolroom, when Nicco had his lessons.
    Once a week, Alessandra was allowed to go to Confession—but always with Ursula, proud and showy in a velvet gown, walking close enough to hear what anyone else might try to say to her. So large was Ursula’s shadow that Alessandra felt her own physical presence in the world diminishing, like sandstone being worn away by wind and rain.
    Reading was her only solace. She read whatever she could bribe or beg someone else to bring to her—and sometimes she wrote her thoughts in a book of spoiled sheets of vellum that Giorgio gathered and bound for her. Pierina stole ink and tiny brushes for her, too, so that Alessandra could practice sketching. For want of another model, she drew her own hands, her naked feet, and the ancient twisting vines of the wisteria that grew outside her window. She thought about the surface of living things, and how