Fruit of the Golden Vine (11 page)

“You must admit your banter was lively.”

“Yes, she certainly set my bile flowing. I look forward to arguing again with her tonight. I will get her to admit that she’s wrongheaded before this courtship is over, mark my words.” Mother drank her tea with a look of belligerent satisfaction. “Was she at the market with you?”

“Yes, Mother, she joined us. She said little, merely followed us around and joined us in lunch.”

Mother settled her inquisitive gaze on Adelina’s face. “Are you much fond of her?”

With Mother, one could only stretch a lie so far. “Yes, I am.”

“I thought as much. Tomboys the pair of you.” Mother took a toothpick and scratched a crumb of gingerbread from her teeth. She continued to tap the pick against her cup while fixing Adelina with the same penetrating look. “Adelina, it may sometimes happen that one woman develops a strong adoration of another, especially when the target of their idolatry appears more mature and worldly-wise. Such fondness, indeed infatuation, is a natural aspect of feminine relationships.”

Somewhere during Mother’s speech, Adelina had forgotten to breathe. She inhaled a welcome mouthful of air. “I understand.”

“At times, a woman may feel such sentiment for another woman that she endures the same agonies which await any lovesick maiden—more painful ones still, perhaps, for there are certain relationships that are the domain only of a man and a woman. For two women to even entertain such thoughts would place them beyond the bounds of natural morality. Do you still follow me, daughter?”

All too well. “Yes, Mother, I do.”

Mother nodded. “It is healthy for a woman to enjoy the proper attention of male admirers. Perhaps it’s time I spoke to your father about letting you see suitors, regardless of his superstition.”

A sharp pain pierced Adelina’s breast. “No! I mean, that’s not needed. I enjoy my privacy. Watching those men file up to court Irena was exhausting enough. I could hardly stand to have them do the same to me, interrupting me from my thoughts and my reading.”

“Perhaps you’re right. It does a woman good to improve her mind, though you read overmuch. Still, you’ll make a better wife for being wiser than your husband.” Mother turned to Felise, who had watched the conversation with vacant bewilderment. “Felise, tell us now about your day.”

“Yes.” Felise scrunched her face. “First, I woke up, and I looked out my window. I saw a bird sitting on the old tree near the vines, so I drew it.”

“What manner of bird was it?”

“A black one.”

“Was it large? It may have been a raven.”

“A large black raven. That’s what it was.” Felise grinned at Adelina. “And I drew it. I can bring the picture to dinner if you want to see it.”

“Yes, bring your picture,” said Mother, “but don’t show it at dinner. We’re taking our meal early so that Irena may perform afterwards. You can show us your bird then.” Mother frowned. “Do you have anything to exhibit, Adelina? Do you still persist with your poetry? You’ve not shared any with us for some time.”

“You kept telling me to write more about God,” Adelina said, “and I can’t do it. I can’t write unless I believe in what I’m writing—” Her innards turned to ice, while Mother’s expression remained still. “I didn’t mean that as it sounded. I do believe in God, but I don’t believe in my ability to express divine subject matter. I feel it’s outside my comprehension.”

Mother visibly relaxed. “Yes, it is difficult. Nonetheless, if you persist, you will not only write better verse but also become closer to Him.” She took a gingerbread biscuit, but before it reached her lips, she hesitated. “If you truly prefer a life of reading and contemplation, and if you so dislike the idea of being courted, you could always become a woman of God.”

“Join a convent?”

“Yes. Your father would be disappointed, but perhaps it might be the best fit for you.”

Adelina’s fingers tightened around her teacup. “I don’t know, Mother. It’s hard to imagine myself as a nun.”

“Yes, it does rather tax the imagination. Nonetheless, it is always an option for you if the demands of this temporal life become too burdensome.” A rare softness stole into Mother’s voice. “You are not entirely without an escape, Adelina, if that is what you crave.”

Adelina stared into her tea. If there was a proper response, she couldn’t think of it.

“Well, dinner shall commence shortly. An early meal to prepare the way for an evening of entertainment.” Mother blotted her lips with a napkin. “I look forward to Irena’s singing. She has a sweet voice, our eldest. And, of course, I greatly anticipate seeing your bird, Felise.”

Felise folded her arms. “It’s a large black raven.”

“Yes, quite.” Mother rose, wincing as her legs straightened, and placed her teacup on the tray. “I will retire for a moment. Will one of you be so kind as to fetch me before dinner begins?”

Felise raised her hand. “I’ll do it. I also want to hear Adelina read a poem tonight. Please bring one, Ada. You have such a lovely way of reading.”

Adelina smiled at her witless, infuriating yet somehow beloved sister. “We’ll see.”

She waited for Mother to leave, waved farewell to Felise and returned to the lobby. The sun had already evaporated into sunset, and a crimson glow flooded the halls.

Adelina ascended the stairs and entered the bedroom she shared with Irena. The sun burned behind the great tree outside her window, tracing each leaf with a radiant, feathered outline. She sighed a breath that seemed somehow not her own. She’d never look at a tree again without thinking of Silvana.

Adelina’s desk was in the corner of the room, opposite the bed. Adelina removed the tiny package from her sleeve, opened it onto the desk’s cluttered surface and set the rings side by side. The waning sunlight burnished their silver edges.

Was it too soon for such a bold gift? Adelina bit her lip. No—Silvana had already offered her cup, as forward a courtship gesture as there was. There was no need for timidity. Adelina had to court Silvana with passion and daring. It was exactly what such an exciting lover demanded, not delicate, prudish wooing but an audacious, searing romance.

Adelina unfurled a length of writing paper and took up her quill pen. If she were to truly captivate this experienced older woman, she would have to conduct a courtship so reckless that future poets would blush to describe it.

The pen scratched acoss the paper. For Adelina’s entire life, she had carried in her a defiant energy, one always frustrated by the conditions of her existence. Now that vitality had found its purpose. By the coming of the next full moon, Silvana would be hers.

The seating arrangements of the night before had been repeated, though the guests had changed—and not, in Silvana’s estimation, to any improvement. The leering Orfeo had rejoined the table, but Marconus and Matheus were absent. Instead, a small, twitchy man had been invited. He sat gnawing on a bone and staring intensely at the flower arrangement in the table’s center.

Delfina waved her fork in Silvana’s direction, her manners abandoned. “But you must agree that, physically, men and women are suited to different roles in life.”

“Must I?” Silvana sliced the pale fish on her plate. “Be more precise.”

Irena giggled as Delfina straightened in her chair, her every inch radiating indignation. Adelina too was watching, her food almost untouched.

“How precise need I be?” said Delfina. “Women can bear children. Men cannot. That is the fundamental division between them.”

“Not all women can bear children. Some are barren. Others dare not, for reasons of sickness or frailty.”

“Is that your excuse?” Delfina plunged a knife into her fish. “Or is your reason for childlessness one fed upon a fertile soil of depravity?”

Adelina laughed, and a smile crept without permission to Silvana’s lips. Now that the mood had been established, Delfina proved an entertaining sparring partner, so long as her exaggerated talk wasn’t taken too seriously.

“Let’s not talk about my fertile soil at the dinner table,” said Silvana, and Adelina laughed again. “My point is that our so-called natural roles aren’t even reliable within nature. Besides, none of this explains why a woman might be forbidden from participating in governance, owning her own business, or, as in some parts of this region, even being refused the chance to learn her letters.”

“Keeping a woman illiterate is of course a grave sin.” Delfina took a dainty bite of her fish. “But you must admit that motherhood is a life-occupying profession.”

“And you must admit some women are suited to other vocations. Why would Adelina not be capable of, let’s say, having a stall at the market? She can count money. She can read. She has a quick wit. What precludes her from a mercantile existence?”

“The law of God.” Delfina glowered. As pious as the old woman might be, she was surely smart enough to realize that falling back on divine vacuities was a sign of surrender. “She is capable of bearing children, a divine blessing, and so she ought not to waste the opportunity.”

“If she were barren, would you let her become a merchant?”

“If she were my son, I would let her become a merchant.”

The men roared in merriment, amused at some crude joke of their own, and the little daughter—Felise, wasn’t it?—pulled a face. “Mother, may I have a sip of wine?”

“Just a sip, child, and from your sister’s goblet, not mine.”

Irena put her goblet in front of Felise, who lifted the cup to her face and poured most of it down her chin. Irena snatched the goblet away and wiped Felise’s face with a napkin. “Lise, you absolute creature! It’s all over your dress!”

“Irena,” said Delfina, “take her away and get her into a new dress. We can’t have her at our evening’s entertainment stained with wine.” She sighed at Irena and Felise as they left the room, Felise insisting all the while that an angel had bumped her. “That child is a hive of mendacity.”

“Now I see where Ada gets her colorful turn of phrase,” said Silvana.

The middle daughter herself watched serenely, her hands folded in her lap and her mouth set in the barest suggestion of a smile. Her hair was pinned into a high bun, and the sight of her slender neck and bare shoulders set Silvana’s stomach tingling. She was a beauty, but not the kind adored by poets, who preferred their women to be elfin, languid and pure of thought, nor the kind preferred by men, who seemed mostly drawn toward meekness and docility. No, with the resolve in her startling blue eyes and the passion that turned her lips, Adelina had been fashioned to enrapture strong-minded women.

“What I do not understand,” said Delfina, and with reluctance, Silvana returned her attention to the other side of the table. “What I do not comprehend is why you can’t at least admit that if every woman behaved as you do, the world would collapse.”

“How do we know the world isn’t already collapsing? Such a thing would happen with imperceptible slowness. In the middle of winter, one finds it difficult to believe the snow around them is melting—but come spring, and it seems that it ought to have been obvious all along.”

“But that’s absurd. The world is presently in divine order.”

“Look over there.” Silvana gestured to the far end of the table, where the men sat in huddled conference, goblets of wine clashing above their heads. Sebastian said something inaudible, and Orfeo laughed with such gusto that he spilled his drink on his head, which set the twitching stranger into a convulsion of amusement. Rafael, the poor thing, couldn’t even manage to feign a smile.

“What am I meant to be looking at?”

“Men. The present custodians of the divine order. A sotted, unseemly bunch, aren’t they? How would your household run if Master Sebastian didn’t let you have a say?”

Delfina’s fork scratched against her plate. “Poorly, I expect.”

“Could you stop Master Sebastian if he insisted that he ought to have full power over your affairs? That your role were to be reduced to nothing, the way many other wives are forced to live?”

“No.” Delfina narrowed her eyes. “He is no fool and recognizes my depth of education, and so he allows me to help oversee the household finances. But naturally, if he decided that it ought to be otherwise, I would have no power to refuse him.”

“Indeed. You have no legal protection, because men have perverted the divine order to exclude you. This is a war, Delfina. On the one side are women and the few good men that aspire to treat us as equals—men such as my brother, flawed though he can be. On the other side is every man that believes women are beneath him. Why do you think this table is so divided? It marks the separation between two opposing forces.”

“A war, you say. And how exactly is this war fought? With sharp words over dinner?”

“I carry a sword, Mistress Delfina, as well as my tongue. If they are to put one line upon my gravestone, it shall be this: no man ever ruled me.”

The door opened, and Irena entered with Felise in hand. “It’s already late evening,” said Irena as she dragged Felise back to her place. “Mother, we should start the performance if I’m to play all my songs.”

“Yes. Very well.” Delfina fixed Silvana with an even stare. “We will continue this discussion tomorrow at dinner.” She rose and clapped her hands once, briskly. “We are retiring now for entertainment, Sebastian. Will you and your friends join us?”

“I drew a large black raven,” said Felise loudly, and Delfina clipped her ear.

Sebastian chuckled and brushed the food from his beard. “Could I ever miss the opportunity to see my talented daughters? My friends, let’s leave the remnants of this meal and retire to the parlor.”

“Adelina, Irena, come help me arrange the room.” Delfina glared at Felise. “And you come too, child, so as not to get yourself dirty again. Mistress Silvana, if you and your brother would care to wait here…”

“Yes, we’ll wait,” said Silvana. The sisters and their mother filed from the room, Felise pausing to grab an olive on the way, and the men, excepting Rafael, followed. Adelina shyly looked back at Silvana as she exited. There was no mistaking the intention in those crystal-blue eyes.

Left alone, the siblings studied one another. Seeing Rafael’s harried expression, Silvana felt a twinge of mercy. “I’m sorry for my intemperate words earlier, Rafael.”