CH. 004: FOOL ☉ – Countess

N THE YEARS after my mother’s death I labored to care for everything entrusted to me, and no thought was given yet to my marriage because I was so needed around the household.

By the year’s end, far from being constrained by womanly maturity, I fled to the woodlands around my father’s estate with greater frequency than ever. I would bring with me nothing but rhymes from Petrarch or Ovid which I’d recite to the listening trees. Lest you accuse me of neglecting my duties, I was too violently pressed by life for someone so young and of such a weak temperament, and if I had not stolen some youthful fire from the gods on occasion, my life would have been entirely dark. How could I light the firebrand of my infant brother’s soul when I hadn’t even a used candle to myself? My father thrashed me severely for being out too late, but as he punished me even at my best behavior, the long walks in solitude allowed me to delay the inevitable until at least after supper.

Alone in the verdant river valleys, my soul was permitted to grieve at last—though I could not lose my composure too much, because it would need to be regained entirely for the trials of the evening.

My father became exceedingly bitter after my mother’s death. Besides Celia’s berry-red countenance, no friendly faces remained in our estate, as Papà abused and used up servants, sometimes before their employment had lasted a month. Nor did the long-suffering servants escape their doom. Take the example of Old Bracciolo, as we called him. That venerable man had been the family porter since my grandfather’s days. My father says he died at his station of a heart-attack, but whispers in the cellar said the poor man was frightened to death by his master’s wrath.

I once asked dear Celia why she stayed on when all the other servants left.

“Someone needs to look after you darlings,” she tut-tutted. “Every morn I pray we’ll outlast your father. A simple prayer, and they say ‘short prayers reach heaven.’ She with patience can have what she wills, so no harm in waiting through the storm.”

I didn’t think I had the patience to ‘outlast’ him as she would have it. Since I was so often the quarry of my father’s insatiable hunt, I was very concerned to find some means of comforting him. My daily prayers were longer than Celia’s—long enough to never reach heaven, it seemed—but one among them was brief enough:

“Heavenly Father, please give my earthly father a wife to console him.”

To my great delight, this prayer at least was heard before the heavenly courts. The Sunday before Carnival, when I had wandered particularly far south, I crossed the famous Via Francigena which carries pilgrims to Rome. As you know, this road is frequented by pilgrims and traders of every stripe, and hidden among the hedgerows I watched the way for many hours and entertained myself with the passing cavalcade. A troubadour passed by, and also a courtly couple in their horse-drawn carriage, a wizened rabbi, a flock of nuns, wooing sweethearts, a judge of the court of Parma, a mendicant begging for alms, an alchemist, a jail wagon driven by an executioner, with a gambler and a man to be hanged in tow.

Last of all in this strange drama of God’s children came the most lovely lady I had ever seen—excepting of course my own mother. She rode upon a horse-drawn palanquin, like a queen of Cathay. She was so finely regaled—a black velvet gown with a foxtail collar, a bodice fringed with dark tassels, and a sienna chemise pulled through the slitting of her sleeves—, I was certain she must be the empress of a great land, or at least the duchess of an exotic colony. A widow’s veil was drawn over her half-obscured features, though I imagined her to be as resplendent as the moon. At her elbow sat a girl close to me in age, with blond hair, a round rosy face, and small squinting eyes.

The two sweethearts dallying on the road were oblivious to the world around them, and stood kissing in the center of the way. The palanquin quickly approached and made to run them over. Afraid as much for the fine lady as the lovers, I leaped from my place in the hedges and shouted for them to look out. The postilion spotted the mating turtledoves just in time, and drew up the well-trained horses an arm’s length from them. He waved a fist and cursed at the lovers, and they scurried away with many apologies.

The lady poked her head out of the litter and drew back her veil to survey the road. Her face was cool, pale, and withdrawn, as must be for a ruler of men.

I, being an impudent child, was so drawn by the fineness of her dress that, forgetting all decorum, I approached and reached out my small hand to touch her sleeve. The stiff sateen glimmered like a butterfly’s wings from a distance.

Mistaking me for a common villain, the woman drew away with a look of horror on her face, and scolded me severely:

“Filthy girl! Do you not know who I am?”

I confessed I did not.

“I am the Countess Ottavia Malaspina of Vezimo,” she said, “widow of the great Count Pasquale Dal Verme of Bobbio!”

“My sincerest apologies, your ladyship,” I retreated. Though I was too ashamed to look up, my delicate curtsy and manner of speaking must have signaled to her I was noble born—and though my dress was muddy, it was in the latest Milanese style—for she said:

“How has a girl of your breeding come to wander the woods like a wild animal?”

To which I replied:

“I can explain, your ladyship. It is just that on the Lord’s day I go on a walk whenever I can, since the rest of the week I must help arrange my father’s estate, which I must admit, your ladyship, is a prodigious burden for me to carry, being still young and having recently lost my mother.”

My candor surprised her no doubt, but as you well know, as long as anyone has known me I have spoken like this. Though I hope I was a clever enough pupil for Latin, no doubt to this day I’m still somewhat lacking in propriety.

The lady, having recovered herself, raised an eyebrow and rejoined:

“Your father then, he has a large estate?”

“Indeed,” I said. “He is Marquis of the entire fief of Corticelle, including our Castles Contignaco and Gallinella, as well as the parish of San Vittore, with an apartment in Milan; and besides that, he is brother to the lord of Varano, and dear cousin to all the other lords of this region.”

My words seemed to please her, and to be honest I was very lonely, and awed by her finery, so I continued:

“Our family is very well connected,” I said, forgetting modesty. “Last winter my father lodged as a guest of honor in the house of the Governor of Milan, and his eminence Cardinal Alessandro Sforza sometimes stops at our manor when he must travel northward.”

“Indeed?” she smiled.

“Indeed. And he has won military distinction fighting for the Holy League, and as a youth traveled so far as the land of the Scots.” I knew these particulars by heart from how often my father repeated them.

The Countess had given me her full attention. “Your father is a great man, then.”

“He is, he is very great,” I replied dumbly, as I always did at his slightest adulation, having been raised to regard his praise as my duty.

“And how is it,” she inquired, “that the daughter of so great a Marquis is found roaming the country like a wanton nymph? You must not be very well attended to. You say your father is widowed, and you have lost your mother?”

I struggled to speak, but at her insistence I reported how recently she had passed, and how distraught—murderous, I thought—my father had become in his grief.

The Countess Ottavia nodded, weighing my every word.

“You are in need of a mother, poor girl.”

She reached out her pale hand and took my own. Her eyes were like large sapphires and they enchanted me.

“It must be difficult to see your father so disfigured by grief. I too know what it means to lose someone you love,” and here she produced tears. “My own husband, the Count of Bobbio, Lord Pasquale Dal Verme”—she always spoke his full name and title— “departed for Paradise only three winters ago. Myself and my daughter Teodolinda still feel his passing strongly.” She looked down at her daughter whose face had darkened. “So you see, wild one, we know how you feel.”

I cannot express to you how deeply these words struck me. Until then I had felt my grief to be the only sadness of its kind, and never, except by the cooing and shushing of my nurse, had someone acknowledged my pain.

It should not surprise you then that I used every technique in my youthful arsenal to convince this fine woman and her daughter to visit Contignaco and my grief-stricken father. The Countess had the patience to hear out my argument, though she likely needed little encouragement. Some women, such as you and I, would raise ourselves by the ladder of philosophy or religion, and engage the interior domain of learning long ruled by men; but others, of a different temperament, would surpass a woman’s station even while submitting to it, in other words: would conquer the world through their choice of husband.

“Is your castle far?” she asked.

“Only a leagues or so,” I said. “But you will require an introduction.” I felt excited that the office would likely fall to me.

“I have no need of one,” she smiled, her cold hand gripping my wrist. “Not when I’m bound by Christian charity to return you safely to your father. No gentleman’s daughter should be so far from her manor.”

She leaned out from under her canopy to order her postilion. He promptly dismounted from the leading horse and practically tossed me into the palanquin before I knew what had happened. I found myself seated next to the Countess’ daughter Teodolinda, or “Tea” as she was called in private, who gave me an uncertain frown.

The countess called out orders; the postilion made the laborious turn so the tandem horses were north-west bound, and we trotted off toward Contignaco. Our driver asked the rustics for directions as we went. I offered to show the way, but the Countess prevented me.

“Let the servant serve,” she said, pointing to the frustrated postilion. “It’s God’s will that a working man sweat for his wage.”

The cadence of the horses jostled my new companion and I into each other when the ground became uneven. We looked at each other warily, I with anxiety for approval, she with I know not what running through her mind.

“You two will be the best of friends,” announced the Countess with a finality that left no room for objections. The wary stares became inquisitive. If she was to be my best friend, I ought to know her better. But her porcelain face was inscrutable.

We passed down the road with a ridge of hill to our left, and beech groves beyond that, then came around the bend into the town of Varano. The parish looked sleepy under the weight of my uncle’s hilltop castle, which was no longer occulted by the rising earth.

We continued north through scattered vineyards. The hills rose again to our right, amplifying the verdant descent to our left. Eventually the ground leveled out on both sides and, ringed by the Piacentine Hills, we came to my father’s land. Bunched terracotta houses tenured the soil under my family’s allowance; herds ushered along flocks of animals. The emerald green of my beloved woodland rose behind them.

We passed through the parish and village of San Vittore. It was the smaller of my father’s villages, and belonged to the fief of Castle Gallinella. The locals there surveyed us as we passed, and began muttering to each other when one of them spotted me through the canopy.

The Countess looked above the heads of the villagers for someone she could condescend to converse with, and landed upon my friend and confessor, Don Bonifacio, who was only recently ordained, and had just moved into the parish.

“Priest,” she called out.

He approached with the youthful, sheepish look I’ve come to know so well, his shoulders hunched and hands clasped. “How might I honor you, my lady,” he obsequiated.

“What is the income of this settlement?”

Her frank question caused him pause for a moment, but she held her gaze with him and he relented:

“Upwards of *** ducats per annum.”

“Mm.”

I could not tell if she was pleased or not. She had the driver carry on.

We came at last to Contignaco and my little heart swelled with pride. I pointed up the winding cypress drive to my family’s residence. We trotted through tilled fields until the manor’s proud tower revealed itself over the yew and cypress. At the end of the lane of trees the iron gate beckoned, guarded by a copse of oaks.

The porter greeted us in the yard. One manservant rushed to attend the palanquin which, though entirely unexpected, was greeted like the barque of a pharaoh; and Lady Ottavia, though only a Countess, sent the second servant scuttling to the feet of my father. Her bearing was far more like Queen Cleopatra than the widow of a county lord. The entire time she did not remove her veil, which only added to her allure.

My father discourteously stormed the yard from his keep with a sword pommel in hand; he often greets guests as if he would make war with them, and the more esteemed he believes the interlocutor to be, the more ruby the Martial gleam in his eye. But the Countess curtailed him with Venusian grace, and by the time he came before her, he looked like a bewildered Adonis.

“To what do I owe this angelic visitation?”

The Countess, when she had curtsied, met his gaze with a sapphire eye from behind her veil.

“I’ve come to return a lost jewel,” she said, and she unveiled me from behind the canopy like she would a gift of turtledoves. Even as tender as I was, I felt a confused sensation at her words: a mixture of vanity and wounded dignity. Did I want to be a jewel? And if I were one, would I be so often thrown to the floor and trampled by the jeweler? Would I not be locked up in a strongbox instead? Yet this fate seemed even less desirable the more I considered it.

The Countess and her daughter were invited to be our guests for the night. The true delight for me was to sit across from the fair Teodolinda, as not only was she pretty and refined, but also—by imperial decree—destined to be my best friend. I had not had companions my own age since the convent, and hardly any of them could have been considered playmates.

Other children made me nervous, which only made me more impudent. Twice I seriously offended the superior breeding of my peer, first in asking her age—“That is a lady’s business!”—and second in trying to skip with her down the corridor—“Angelica, I am shocked by you. I visited Madrid when I was but five years, and I can tell you on good authority that no Spanish ladies would skip so wildly.”

Thus deflated, and convinced of the superiority of my guest in all things, I contended myself with smiling at her and admiring her curls. I thought ruefully that the real Angelica whom gallant Orlando loved was naturally blond and fair. My best friend Tea was clearly cut out to be a heroine. She was the west wind whose praise the poets would sing, and I merely the Aeolian harp.

All through dinner the Countess kept her veil over her eyes, though her mouth was articulate and voice silky as if to make up for the lost charm of her face. Only her blue eyes glinted from behind the lace.

“You still mourn your husband,” noted my father.

She nodded slowly with gravitas.

“You must understand,” she said, drawing her veil lower, “my loyalty, when won, is won forever. The world is full of dispassionate souls, but the good Lord put a flame in my heart that burns strong.”

My father nodded, chewing thoughtfully. “Some of us are born under a fiery star. It is a blessing.”

“I hope you are right,” she said. “Only I fear I love whichever man I am with too greatly. Perhaps you think it foolish, that I still wear a veil?”

My father threw his napkin on the table and shook his head vigorously. “It is good for a woman to mourn her husband. It’s the proper way of things. You serve him well, dead though he may be.”

She thanked him with a gracious nod, and he stared at her, looking both entranced and guilty.

My father never suffered guests for very long. As a host none was his equal through dessert, for he had countless tales of his own accomplishments and far more of his opponents’ blunders, so to listen to him was both to be regaled by the deeds of Charlemagne and to laugh at Boccaccio’s fools. He could spend hours enumerating with great embellishment his role at the Battle of Lepanto—the number of galleys, galleasses and galliots in the fleet, the number of Turkish Janissaries he had decapitated, the number of crescent pennants he had captured—at least while the sun was still up. But at the darkening hours his mood would inevitably sour, and he would retreat into his quarters if he had no servant to make sport of. Even though the widowed Countess had woven her enchantment over him—perhaps for that very reason—he left for his chamber as soon as the meal was concluded.

Good Celia provided myself and Tea with embroidery frames, but the Countess, when offered such a pastime, stood and followed my father’s retreat into the heart of the manor.

“Where is she going?” I demanded, and when I got no answer, I begged Tea to waylay her. I had a high regard for this noblewoman, and I did not want her to suffer my father’s dark moods.

But Celia begged me to be still, so in much agitation I kept embroidering with my companions. Tea stitched a very fine hyacinth. I started on indeterminate flowers that then became ivy, then flowers again, and my indecision made knots in the pattern.

Finally I could bear my anxiety no longer. I threw down my sewing and ran to my father’s study to the astonishment and censure of my companions. I stopped at the door and held my breath. Maybe I would not need to save the Countess after all: I heard no lashing belt or cries of pain. I did hear a rhythmic sound I could not place, the hurr-hurring of some animal—

I peeked beyond the door and saw something incomprehensible to me:

My father was seated upon a carved chair with his face in his hands. He was crying. His whole lupine body shook with masculine sobs. The Countess cupped both his shoulders with her fine hands and leaned over to whisper in his ear:

“Nothing can replace those we’ve lost,” she cooed, and my father cried all the more. He was a lion tamed by the virgin’s touch. Though her words were gentle, something in her manner suggested she had made a great conquest. Whenever his tears would stop, she would whisper some other thing into his ear, and he would start again though he looked exhausted. When he seemed as if he would drop, she bent down and removed her veil, and made him look into her eyes.

To this day I have seen few things so mysterious as the occult effect of that woman upon my father: Rolando the unbreakable citadel, reduced to rain-soaked rubble. In my long isolation I’ve witnessed prophetic wonders, whether phantasmic or divine, but this sight more than any other foretold the spinning of Fortune’s Wheel which would turn my life on its head.

I would have stared agape for who knows how long, but the spell broke when the Countess’ eyes met my own, moments before Celia caught up at last and yanked me away.