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

their shape came from everything hidden inside.
    The summer spread its glorious wings while Alessandra was locked indoors. The first few months passed quickly enough in the pleasures she found in reading and drawing—but then the autumn came.
    Her father was away, searching out new books to publish, making his yearly rounds to the greatest libraries of the region, in monasteries and noble palaces. Ursula took advantage of his absence to say things she never would have dared say when he was at home.
    Quite capable of being pleasant and even charming when she wanted to, Ursula made it clear—day after day, in a relentless stream of cruel comments—that Alessandra’s ongoing presence in the household was the only thing that stood between Ursula and perfect domestic bliss. Alessandra was selfish and horrid for refusing to marry or take the veil and leave Ursula in peace to enjoy her husband’s other children.
    While her stepmother kept watch on her, Alessandra sat and sewed seed pearls on yards and yards of blue silk that Ursula said would one day serve as the cloth of her wedding gown. No field was ever sowed so thickly—nor were there ever seeds with less chance of sprouting. As Alessandra plied the needle, poking it up through the silk and through the pearl and down again, she thought about the smell of dry leaves and ripe pears, and the sounds of the harvest songs wafting across theparched fields. She looked down at her white hands and remembered how they were stained purple the year before, when she and Nicco stole into the vineyard and feasted on the blackest, ripest grapes they could find. She learned to answer Ursula without really hearing what she said, making the small, polite sounds considered fitting conversation for girls.
    The more she stayed indoors alone, while her siblings climbed trees and swam in the river and watched the sunsets, the more Alessandra grew to loathe her jailor. Fall slipped away from her, barely glimpsed—and then the fog and rain of winter came. By then—even though her father was home again—each day seemed to last a year. Her eyes ached from the needlework, and her head hurt so much that even Ursula sometimes took pity on her.
    When she was allowed to lie in bed in her room, Alessandra looked at the square of sky that showed outside her window and dreamed of doorways.
     
    The following spring, Alessandra’s father came to visit her in her room, where she lay in bed reading after the midday meal. The covers were pulled up around her shoulders.There was a fire burning in the brazier. Outside, the rain was falling, although Alessandra could only tell from the silver droplets that sat like pearls in the silver of her father’s hair.
    “Look what I’ve brought you, Curly-top!” He opened his fur-lined cloak and brought out a baby rabbit, which peeked out from between his fingers and wriggled its nose at Alessandra.
    She smiled at it from over the top edge of her book. “Dear Papa, you’re always trying to tempt me away from my reading, aren’t you?” She marked her place with the striped tail feather from a hawk—a souvenir of Nicco’s latest outing to the forest—then lay the book down beside her. “What a lovely little bit of life and fluff! Was it its mother we ate today?”
    “Cook saved this one for you. His brothers and sisters, I’m afraid, have been made into a stew.”
    Alessandra took the bunny from her dad and stroked it gently with her cheek. “How its little heart is pounding!”
    “I want to speak to you about a matter of importance,” said Carlo, settling himself onto the cushions that covered the long chest beside his daughter’s bed.
    Alessandra kissed the baby rabbit and put it in her sleeve, from where it peeked out, wriggling its silken ears as if still unable to believe its good fortune, landing here in this luxurious bedroom instead of in the stew pot.
    “You know how much I treasure you, daughter.”
    “Thank you, Papa. But you make me tremble