CHAPTER EIGHT
The atrium of Casa Montague
The sunny afternoon of St. Lucy’s Eve
“Where are Cesario and Emilia?” Mamma swayed back and forth, back and forth, holding a fretful Efron in one arm and a sleepy Adino in the other. “It’s not like them to be late for a meal, much less the feast of St. Lucy’s Eve!”
“They’ll be here.” Papà shoved the benches close around our long table, placed a cushion on a chair for Mamma and another on a chair for Susanna, helped Tommaso carry in the giant salver bearing the spit-roasted kid surrounded by glazed fruits and vegetables that gleamed in the sun.
Princess Isabella, Katherina and Imogene followed like hungry puppies sniffing the air and hoping for a fortuitous accident, and I knew they wouldn’t hesitate to lunge if something dropped to the floor. After all, what was a little dust compared to a turnip, an apple or a leek?
Susanna settled into her assigned chair. “Where is Baldissere? He went to the market, not the moon. I’m surprised he’s late to dinner, too.” She patted her belly. “As I expand, he expands.”
Mamma chuckled. “Some men do that.”
Nurse bustled in bearing bowls of marinated olives and cardoons, bread plates of almonds, cheese and salumi.
“It’s not like those young scamps to be tardy, but my lady, it is an exciting day for all the children.
Probably Cesario got distracted playing with his friends’ new toys and for certain Emilia’s in the palace kitchen helping and testing all the dishes.
They’ll arrive when their appetite sends them home. ”
“I could give them some of my appetite,” Katherina grumbled.
Nurse waved the servers toward the table, and they placed a salad of veal feet, sliced cold hare stuffed in the Lombard style, grapes sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, frittata with sweetbreads…
Really, where were those children?
“Where’s Princess Isabella?” Katherina wondered. “And Lysander?”
Oh, it would be so much better for all if Lysander waited until after Prince Escalus had appeared…
Going to Mamma, I urged, “Give Efron to me.” Taking the baby and the rag Mamma used to protect her clothing, I walked with him until he stopped fussing.
During her pregnancy, Mamma had complained the child in her belly kept her up because he liked to be walked, and she was right—about one of them.
Adino was a more placid baby, and as she shifted him in her arms she watched me firmly pat Efron’s diapered bottom.
“You do well with him, Rosie, I suppose because you’re so alike. ”
Papà looked up from tapping the spigot into the first wine cask.
“That’s true. Sweet Jesu, we’re about to get rid of one and we’re saddled with another one!
” He laughed when I glared, and pinched my cheek.
“I used to have bruises on my ribs from your kicks, and that was before you were born. Why, when I think you’re going to be married and leave home—” He stopped as if suddenly stricken by the reality of the thought, and cleared his throat and blew his nose.
I bumped him with my shoulder. “I know, Papà, I’ll miss you, too, but I’m not going far. As all those men at the market said to Cal, ‘Moglie a buoi dei paesi tuoi.’”
“What did he respond?” Papà asked.
“He nodded his head as if he’d planned our betrothal because they were right and he wanted a wife from Verona.
As if I were a street dog!” Remembering my irritation, I patted Efron a little too enthusiastically.
He burped on my shoulder and missed the rag.
I should have expected it; for this holiday, I had worn one of the new gowns of a fiery scarlet velvet, and now it had been properly baptized.
Katherina and Imogene laughed uproariously.
Nurse pulled a towel from her belt and efficiently wiped me off—between Mamma’s children and Mamma herself, she’d done it hundreds of times—and covered me with a clean towel. “Pat a little more gently. That one has reach.”
I viewed the baby’s blissful expression. “Obviously, he’s feeling better.”
“You’ve always had a gift.” Mamma was not so much teasing as stating a fact. When it came to digestive processes, all I had to do was hold an infant and it produced smelly concoctions from one end or the other.
“I’m starving,” Imogene complained.
To my eye, she looked taller and that seemed to go with her new and massive appetite.
“Prince Escalus and his bodyguards aren’t here, either, so possibly Emilia and Cesario are still running royal errands.
” Come to think of it…Cal was a timely man, and it was unlike him and his bodyguards to be late for any reason, much less something as pleasurable as a festive meal among convivial company. Why…?
“We can’t eat without the children,” Mamma insisted.
Thank the sweet Virgin, at that moment Cesario and Emilia ran in, yelling, although I could scarcely hear them for the hungry growling in my gut. They smelled of smoke and wore smudges of ash on their cheeks and clothes.
Cesario danced up and down like a wooden toy on stilts. “Mamma! Papà! A fire. A fire at the orphanage!”