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REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

Small, Bertrice.

Bianca: the silk merchant’s daughters/Bertrice Small.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-101-60751-0

1. Florence (Italy)—History—1421–1737—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3569.M28B53 2012

813’.54—dc23 2012021141

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

Prologue

Florence, 1474

T
he beggar was an optimist but not a fool. He shrank deep into the shadows of the doorway as he heard the footsteps coming down the nearby alley. Two men, well muffled in dark cloaks, emerged from the narrow passage carrying a wrapped bundle between them. Making their way down a narrow flight of stone steps to the muddy shore, they put their burden into a small boat, climbed in, and rowed out into the middle of the river that ran through the city of Florence.

The night was very dark. The thin sliver of waning moon cast no light whatsoever. The fog was beginning to thicken as the wet mist touched everything. The beggar could not see the little boat and its inhabitants now, but he heard the distinct splash of something being dumped into the Arno.
A body, no doubt,
he thought, and he crossed himself. Then the small vessel became visible once more as it emerged from the water to be pulled back up onto the muddy shore. The two men got out and, making their way to what passed for a street again, disappeared into the darkened alley.

The beggar never moved as with unseeing eyes they passed by a second time without noticing him. He didn’t even dare to breathe. He knew that if he was to see another day, no one must see him. The footsteps of the two men faded away. The beggar closed his eyes to doze, in relative safety for the moment.

Chapter 1

S
he was the fairest virgin in Florence. Or so it was said of Bianca Maria Rosa Pietro d’Angelo. High praise considering that red-gold or blond hair was considered the height of beauty, and Bianca had ebony tresses. She also had flawless features, an ivory complexion, a heart-shaped face, and eyes that were a startling shade of aquamarine blue. As she crossed the Piazza Santa Anna from her home with her mother more and more, gentlemen came to catch a glimpse of what they could of her features, which were carefully and modestly concealed by a bowed head and a light veiling. An audible sigh of regret arose as mother and daughter entered the church for morning Mass.

“They will be waiting when we come out,” Bianca said to her mother.

“
Sempliciottos!
They are wasting their time,” her parent replied. “I do not mean to waste my daughters on Florentine marriages. I was sacrificed by Venice to this dark city. I will not allow my girls to be. Only my love for your father has kept me here.”

They found their way to the chairs set aside for their family and knelt in prayer on the embroidered red and gold kneelers. Mass began. They had music, which many smaller churches in the city did not—but Santa Anna Dolce was the family church of the Pietro d’Angelo family. It had been built by them a hundred years ago across from their large palazzo, which stood on the opposite side of the piazza. Upon its walls it had murals that depicted the life of Santa Anna, mother of the blessed Virgin. Besides the main altar, there were two other small altars. One to Santa Anna herself and the other to Santa Maria. The windows were stained glass. The floor, squares of black and white marble.

The Pietro d’Angelo wealth generously paid the livings of the three priests and the small choir that served it. The choir was a mixture of eunuchs and ungelded men with rich, deep voices. As long as they sang, they received a small stipend and were allowed to live in a dormitory attached to the church. The choir was a particularly excellent one, and much envied by its neighbors.

As their voices died, Orianna Pietro d’Angelo sighed softly with relief, Mass concluded. She had a busy day ahead of her and little patience for piety except where it benefited her. Father Bonamico was waiting for them at the door to the church. He was a chatty old man, and fond of the Pietro d’Angelo children. “Bianca’s prospective suitors grow more each day,” he noted, nodding approvingly. “Word of her beauty spreads.”

“It is ridiculous,” Orianna said irritably. “Have they nothing better to do than hang about like dogs after a young bitch? I must speak to Gio about seeing that the piazza is cleared when we cross to the church and back. Next they will be stomping and hooting at her. Her reputation will suffer then, though she be as innocent as a lamb.”

“They have too much respect for your husband to do that,” the priest responded.

“They are afraid of him, you mean,” Orianna answered drily.

Father Bonamico chuckled. “Perhaps that too, gracious lady. Young men will be young men. The lady Bianca is quite lovely. You cannot blame them for looking.”

A small smile touched the mother’s lips. “Well,” she allowed, “perhaps not.” Then she gracefully descended the church steps, her daughter behind her. “Walk next to me, Bianca,” Orianna instructed the girl as they reached the bottom of the stairs. She linked her arm with her daughter’s, and the two moved back across the square together towards the palazzo. They had almost gained their destination when a young man sprang in front of them holding out a small beribboned nosegay to Bianca.

“For you,
madonna
!” he said eagerly, smiling, his brown eyes shining.

Bianca looked up, startled, but her mother slapped the flowers away.

“Impudente! Buffone!”
she said, scolding him sternly. “Where are your manners? We have not been introduced,
but I know your mama
. She shall hear of this breach of etiquette on your part. She did not raise you to accost respectable maidens in the public square, or to offend their parents, as you have now done.”

“Your pardon,
signora
,
madonna
,” the young man said, bowing shamefacedly.

The two men who guarded the palazzo’s main doors, finally remembering their duties, rushed forward and beat the young man away. He fled howling across the piazza while the others gathered and laughed at his retreat. Then they too began to disperse, hurrying after the daring one to learn what he had seen when Bianca briefly lifted her eyes to him.

“You should have come and escorted us from the church,” Orianna told the two servingmen furiously. “You saw that crowd of ruffians leering at the lady Bianca. If you do not do better in the future, I shall tell your master that you are dilatory in your duties and have you both dismissed.” She swept past, stopped, and then glared at them, waiting for the palazzo’s main portal to be opened so she might enter her home.

Bianca gave the two men a sympathetic look and hurried after her mother.

“A sweet maid,” one of the men said as he pulled the door closed behind his mistress and her daughter. “It will be a fortunate man who gains her to wife.”

“And a rich one,” the other man replied.

His companion shrugged, the motion conveying his thoughts as clearly as if he had spoken them. Of course the girl’s bridegroom would be a wealthy man. Her father was a wealthy and important man. Master Pietro d’Angelo was not likely to give any of his four daughters in marriage to a man lacking in distinction. The one who had just passed by would surely be matched soon. She was just fourteen, the second-eldest of her parents’ seven children. Her brother Marco had been born nine months to the day after their parents married. The lady Bianca had come thirteen months later, to be followed by Georgio, Francesca, the twins, Luca and Luciana, and finally the little
bambina
Giulia, who would be four soon. The
signora
had produced no more children after that.

Like a good wife, the lady Orianna had given her husband seven healthy children. She was content with her privileged status as the wife of the man who ruled the Arte di Por Santa Maria
,
the city’s silk merchants. Their guild was named for the street on which the city’s many silk warehouses were located. The lady was aware, as all rich wives were, that her husband had a mistress he visited discreetly at a house he owned in a section near the river. It was the custom of important men to keep a mistress. One who did not was considered either parsimonious or less than a man. The master respected his wife publicly and, it was said, privately. He never flaunted his mistress, though her identity was known. He set an excellent example for his sons. Giovanni Pietro d’Angelo was a good master.

The servingman drew the great door closed once the women had hurried through. The city was becoming alive around them, although Piazza San Anna was a quiet enclave. The church and its musicians’ dormitory took up a side and a half of the square. The family’s palazzo took up another two sides. There was only one way both in and out of the piazza, which took up the remaining angle of the square. There was also a small park that was open to any whose behavior was respectable. The greensward had a beautiful white marble fountain with a naked marble naiad seated at its center. She was brushing her long hair. The water nymph was surrounded by fat, winged cupids, several of whom held porphyry vases from which water poured into the fountain. There were lime trees and terra-cotta pots of peach-colored roses that the family gardeners kept in bloom most of the year but for the winter months. There were three white marble benches for visitors to rest upon, and white crushed-marble paths for strolling.

From inside the palazzo, you could see the park only from the windows at the very top of the building, for the marble edifice had no windows on its lower floors. It was a Florentine belief that only a foolish man encouraged robbers by putting windows where someone could peer in from the outside and view your possessions, thus tempting theft. The Pietro d’Angelo palazzo was built around a large garden.

As in all families of wealth and importance, respectable adult women did not leave their homes except on rare occasions, such as attending Mass or going to their villas in the countryside outside of Florence. Privileged daughters might accompany their mothers to church, as Bianca did, but their only other foray outside of their father’s homes would be when they were married or entered a convent. The garden served as a place for recreation and fresh air. It was there that Bianca now found her sister Francesca.

“Were there men again today waiting for you?” she eagerly asked. She was seated with her nursemaid, who was brushing her blond hair. Francesca’s golden tresses were a source of great pride to her. They were washed weekly and rinsed with fresh-squeezed lemon juice and warm water. And she always dried her hair in the bright sunlight while her nursemaid slowly brushed the long locks so they might gain the full advantage of the sun.

“Yes,” Bianca answered. “A larger crowd than before.”

“I heard that one accosted you,” Francesca said, her face turned to her sister’s. “I don’t know why our mother does not let me come to Mass with you.”

“How do you learn such things and I am barely back in the house?” Bianca asked.

Francesca giggled. “Whenever they know you are returning from church, a bunch of the housemaids run to the top of the house and the windows overlooking the square to watch your passage back across the piazza. Ohh, I wish I could be with you. Did you keep your swain’s bouquet? Let me see it!”

“I would not take any kind of gift from a stranger, or any man for that matter, but our father and brothers,” Bianca replied primly. “Such a query tells me that you are far too young to be allowed out, Francesca. You have only just turned ten. I was not permitted to accompany our mother until I had celebrated my thirteenth birthday last year. Remember, you are the daughter of an important man of business from Florence and of a Venetian
principessa
, Francesca.”

“Oh pooh,” came the airy reply. “You have become so stuck-up of late. Well, you’ll be gone soon enough, for our father is even now arranging a marriage for you. By summer you will be wed, and mistress of your own house. Then our mother will take me across the piazza to Mass with her.”

“What do you mean our father negotiates a marriage for me? What have you heard, little
ficcanaso
?” She grasped a lock of her sister’s hair and yanked it hard. “Tell me at once! Who is it? Do you know? Is he handsome? Has he come with his father to negotiate with our father? Speak, or I will snatch you bald!”

“Ouch!” Francesca protested, retrieving her hair from Bianca’s grip. “I only overheard a little by chance. I was passing by our father’s library yesterday when I heard voices coming from the chamber, and the doors were closed.”

“You eavesdropped!”

“Of course I did,” Francesca said. “How else would I learn anything that goes on in this house? I put my ear to the door and heard our papa say that our mama did not wish their daughters to marry within the Florentine community. That he agreed, and planned for our marriages to benefit the Pietro d’Angelo family to the maximum. Papa said he had all the influence he sought or needed in Florence.

“The man, his voice was hard, and he told Papa that a marriage to
him
would ensure the security of the Pietro d’Angelo family. He reminded our father that a debt was owed to him. It would be paid in full when his marriage to you was celebrated. Father asked that he request anything else of him but such a union. The man laughed. Oh, Bianca, I did not like his laugh. It was cruel.” Francesca shivered with the memory.

“Madre di Dios,”
the older girl whispered almost to herself. Then she said, “What else, Francesca? What else did you hear?”

“Nothing. I heard someone coming. I didn’t want anyone catching me. You know Papa would have whipped me for it. I didn’t dare stay,” was the regretful reply.

Bianca nodded. “I will speak with our mother,” she told her sister.

“Ohh, please don’t tell that I eavesdropped!” Francesca begged.

“I won’t,” Bianca promised. “I’ll say I heard the servants gossiping. Mama will tell me if any such arrangements for my future have been made. She will know.”

“I don’t want you to marry and leave us,” the younger girl admitted. “I didn’t mean it when I said I’d be glad to have you gone.”

“I know that, little
ficcanaso
,” Bianca assured her sibling with a small smile. Then she went off to find their mother and learn the truth of what her sister had heard.

“Your mother is closeted with the master,” Fabia, her mother’s servingwoman, told Bianca. Then she lowered her voice to speak in a more confidential tone. “It is something serious, for I heard your mother raising her voice, which is most unlike her.”

“I have heard rumors regarding a marriage for me,” Bianca said softly.

Suddenly the door to her mother’s privy chamber was flung open, and her father, his face dark with anger, strode out and past them, exiting Lady Orianna’s apartments.

“I will never forgive you for this, Gio!” her mother shouted after him.
“Never!”
Then, seeing Bianca, she burst into tears, turned, and slammed the door shut behind her.

“I must go to her,” Fabia said.

Bianca nodded, and left her mother’s rooms. Her mother had shouted. Orianna never shouted. And she had looked positively distraught. Orianna Rafaela Maria Theresa Venier, a
principessa
of the great Venetian Republic, never raised her voice, never allowed her emotions to show, and yet she had done both within hearing of not only her eldest daughter but a servant as well. Whatever was happening was not a good thing.

Francesca awaited Bianca in her elder sister’s bedchamber. “What did you learn?” she demanded.

Bianca told her of the scene that she and Fabia had just witnessed.

Francesca’s blue-green eyes grew round. “Our mother never shouts like some common fishwife,” she said. “And to tell our father she would never forgive him . . . what has he done to incur such wrath from her?”

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