Francesca and the Baron’s Son

Tuscany
May 1st, 1711

            Francesca could tell that the bride had been crying, and they weren’t tears of joy. Her eyes and nose looked red and sore.

            The bride, Francesca’s eighteen-year-old cousin, wore a golden brocade dress that tapered to her cinched waist and exploded into voluminous skirts. The elegant dress only accentuated the girl’s plainness. She had mousy brown hair and a long pale face. The groom, about the same age, looked angry, but his weak chin suggested an air of peevishness.

            An old bishop in white robes and a tall miter hat stretched his hands over the couple, speaking in Latin. His words echoed around the small stone chapel. Light from a stained-glass window colored the hem of the bishop’s robe and a dozen candles softened the gloom.

            Francesca fidgeted.

            She was a girl of eleven with impatient green eyes, the color of a deep forest glen. Suntanned skin nearly hid the dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her auburn hair had been swept into a knot at her nape, but much of it had fallen loose. She wore a green dress that matched her eyes, except for the smudges of brown over her knees.

            Francesca’s eyes searched the room for something to occupy her. She kicked her feet absently, and Papa, seated on her left, took her hand. That was his way of telling her to settle down. She tried, but she was annoyed. He had said that her cousin’s wedding would be a happy occasion, but no one seemed happy, and it seemed to be taking forever.

            With her fingertip, she traced the scars that crisscrossed the back of Papa’s hand, remnants from his days as a soldier and duelist. He smiled down at her, crinkling his steel-grey eyes. He squeezed her hand, then turned his attention back to the bishop.

            Francesca gazed around at the other children. Past her father sat her older brothers, Antonio and Sebastian. Sebi caught her eye and stuck out his tongue. She returned the gesture. Papa scowled at them both.

            In the pew in front of them sat Francesca’s nine-year-old twin cousins, Camella and Gabriela. Camella always wore pink and Gabriela blue so that people could tell them apart. Their sister stood before the bishop fighting back tears. Francesca tried unsuccessfully to get their attention. Papa had promised that they could play after the ceremony, and she wanted to spend time with them.

            The only other child was the younger brother of the groom, Bencino. He sat between his parents, the baron and baroness. He had brooding eyes, like the groom, and his lips seemed stuck in a permanent sneer, or maybe that was just his face.

            The bishop ceased his droning and the unhappy couple turned and marched solemnly out of the chapel. The Baron and his wife followed, then her cousins and their parents. Francesca and her family followed along with a few other guests.

            Bencino must have stayed behind. He came up behind them, shoving Antonio roughly out of the way as he passed. Antonio, five inches taller and a few years older than Bencino, started after him, but Papa quickly put a restraining hand on Antonio’s shoulder. Antonio turned and Papa gave him a small but firm shake of the head. Antonio’s jaws clenched but he held his place. The boy had noble blood and her family, while wealthy and successful, did not.

            The chapel occupied a small hill close to the rambling, utilitarian manor that belonged to Francesca’s uncle. The ungainly stone house seemed out of place in the miles of spring green pastures that stretched up into the foothills blushing with red poppies. The soft cream bodies of sheep dotted the hillsides, half of them looking naked after the spring shearing. Lines of evenly spaced cypress trees followed a distant road.

            Back at the manor, Camella and Gabriela’s governess led them and Francesca to the upstairs playroom. Tapestries draped the walls in domestic scenes in pale blues and greens. A small fire crackled in the white marble fireplace, but the window opened to the fresh air. An ebony piano sat in one corner, dark and imposing in the pale room. The governess retreated to a pastel floral chair, retrieving her needlework from a bag at her feet.

            Francesca turned to her cousins with an excited bounce. “What shall we play?”

            “Let’s have tea,” said Camella, sitting down at a child-sized table spread with a child-sized tea set.

            Francesca’s forehead creased. She’d had enough of sitting still.

            Gabriela pressed a doll into Francesca’s arms and picked one up for herself that wore a dress that matched hers. Camella put a doll in another chair and pretended to spoon-feed it.

            Francesca examined the doll in her arms. It was a decent likeness of a baby, carved of wood with painted features, glued on hair, and a white gown. “What should I do with it?”

            Gabriela gave her a puzzled look. “Play with it.”

            Francesca tossed the doll in the air, catching it by one arm.

            “No!” cried her cousins in unison.

            Gabriela pressed the doll back into her arms. “You have to take care of it.” She smoothed its tangled hair. “Don’t you have dolls at home?”

            Francesca nodded as she pictured her dolls, stacked in a corner and covered with dust. She watched the happiness on Gabriela’s face as she hummed and rocked her doll.

            Camella scolded her doll cheerfully while spooning it imaginary food. “You must eat, or you’ll grow up plain and no one will want to marry you.”

            Francesca rocked her doll and poked at its painted eyes. She didn’t understand how this was supposed to be fun. “I think mine is broken.” She set the doll on the table and turned to look around the room examining one bookcase filled with games and musical instruments. “Do you have any books?”

            Camella shook her head. “No. We don’t read. Papa says it ruins a girl.”

            “You mean you don’t, or you don’t know how?” asked Francesca.

            “Mama wanted us to learn, but Papa said we couldn’t,” Camella replied.         

            Francesca shook her head in amazement. “But…” She stopped, not quite sure what she had meant to ask. It seemed so odd. Papa insisted that she read not only Italian, but English and Latin as well. She wandered to the open window. A warm breeze brought in the earthy smell of sheep pastures. A pond captured a bit of sky and glowed like a turquoise gem in a deep green setting. Her brothers raced along the trail to the woods.

            Jealousy wiggled through Francesca’s stomach; the airy room suddenly seemed close and confining.

            “Could we go play by the pond?” Francesca asked.

            “Why?” said Gabriela.

            “We might fall in!” said Camella.

            “Certainly not,” said the governess straightening her high-necked, charcoal grey dress. “But—”

            A light knock on the door interrupted her. A servant girl leaned in. “Excuse me, Mancare Ricci. The mistress would like to speak with you.”

            “Very well.” The governess carefully folded her needlework and set it back in her bag. She rose, smoothing her skirts, and turned to the girls. “But you may ask the cook for a basket and have a picnic in the garden.”

            Francesca’s cousins grinned with excitement. Francesca gave them a weak smile.

            “Just be careful not to muss your dresses,” said the governess. “I’ll join you there.”

            They all headed out of the room.

            The hallways were whitewashed plaster punctuated by dark beams. Francesca followed her cousins, but paused at a partly open door when she heard Papa and her uncle talking inside. The others hurried on, but she peeked in. The dark paneled room had one whole wall of bookshelves and a fire sputtered in the brick fireplace.

            “Let them wait for their dinner,” said her uncle Tino, a robust man with a face much like Papa’s except tending to flab in the jowls. His face was red, and he sipped amber fluid from a crystal glass. “Serves them right for treating us like the poor relations.”

            “But you feel it’s a good match,” said Papa. There was a question in the way he said it.

            Her uncle nodded. “Better than I had hoped for. Mind you, we had to settle an extensive dowry on the girl. And even then, it wouldn’t have happened if the baron hadn’t gambled away his holdings.”

            “I just meant that neither of them looked…” he searched for words, “keen on the match.”

            Uncle Tino’s uproarious laughter startled Francesca. Then her uncle saw Papa’s serious expression and the laughter faded. He took a sip of his drink.

“I forgot who I was talking to. Thurio DiCesare, the only man in Tuscany who married for love.” The derision he put into the word love was clear.

            Papa frowned.

            Uncle Tino swallowed the rest of his drink. “For twenty years the baron’s been treating me like chaff. Well, no more! All he owns is now because of me, and my grandchildren’s blood will be as blue as his.” He threw the glass into the fireplace.

            The shattering sound roused Francesca and she shivered as she hurried down the hall after the girls. Now she understood why the bride had been crying.

 

            The formal gardens behind the house were set on a grid, four squares of grass intersected by wide, raked gravel walks. Sharp rectangle hedges of boxwood and regimented flowers in neat beds edged the walkways. Even the red poppies that grew haphazardly on the hillsides were here evenly spaced and upright. At least a wisteria that covered the arbor at the center of the garden twisted wildly up the beams and bloomed in lavender abandon.

            Camella and Gabriela spread a cream-colored blanket on the closest square of grass and arranged utensils, plates, and napkins. They knelt on the corners of the blanket staring when Francesca plopped down cross-legged.

            Camella took bread, cheese, and oranges from the basket as Gabriela poured tea. Her hand stopped, mid-pour, as they heard horse hooves crunching on the gravel walk. The twins turned to see who approached. Francesca noticed their bodies tense when the baron’s young son, Bencino, rode into view. The girls held motionless, only their eyes moving, like rabbits hoping to be passed over by a hawk.

            But the hawk spotted them.

            Bencino rode a dappled grey horse. A riding crop dangled from a strap around his wrist. He grinned at them, but there was no warmth in his expression. He turned his horse toward them. Camella and Gabriela rose, backing away. They curtsied quickly and awkwardly, still backing.

            Francesca stood as Bencino urged the horse between the hedges and onto the grass. Francesca looked uncertainly from the boy to the frightened girls who moved toward the far side of the square. Camella beckoned to her. Francesca looked again at Bencino, wondering what they were afraid of. He was not much taller than her, thin and angular.

            Francesca curtsied as he approached. “Good day, my Lord.”

            She glanced over her shoulder. Her cousins had slipped around the far hedge and stood watching from behind it.

            Bencino ignored Francesca. He rode straight toward their blanket. His horse paused at the edge and shook its head. The boy dug his heels into the horse’s side, urging it on. It snorted but took a step onto the blanket.

            Francesca grabbed the bridle. “Please, stop, my Lord, you’ll break everything.”

            The horse paused.

            Bencino looked at Francesca. “Let go.” His voice was cold.

            “But, my Lord, our tea.”

            The boy’s riding crop whipped out and stung the back of Francesca’s hand. She snatched back her hand with a muffled yelp. She stared at Bencino in disbelief.

            He whipped his crop against the horse’s side, and it started forward onto the blanket. A teacup and saucer crunched beneath an ironclad hoof.

            Anger surged through Francesca. She shoved at the horse’s hind quarter trying to move it off the blanket, but Bencino reined the horse in, and it turned in a circle, oranges, tiny sandwiches, cookies, and plates crushed beneath its feet.

            “Stop!” yelled Francesca.

            Bencino laughed.

            From behind her, Francesca heard the governess’ voice. She sounded frightened as well. “Girls, come here.”

            Camella and Gabriela hurried along the gravel path toward the governess.

            Francesca turned to the woman. “Stop him!”

            The governess scowled. “Francesca, come away from there.”

            Then Francesca felt the bite of the riding crop on her bare neck, like the sting of a dozen wasps.

            She put a hand to her neck and turned toward Bencino with rage clouding her vision. She reached up, grabbed the riding crop, and pulled. The crop’s strap was wrapped around the boy’s wrist. They struggled for a moment, then the horse reared.

            Bencino slid out of the saddle. He fell with a thud onto the ground next to the blanket. The horse pranced away.

            The governess and the girls stared with their hands over their mouths.

            The boy rose to his feet, glaring. “Do you know who I am?” he demanded.

            Francesca balled her fists. “A coward, if you bully little girls and break their things.”

            He swung the crop again, stinging Francesca’s cheek and raising a red welt. She tasted blood where her cheek had hit her teeth.

            Bencino never saw Francesca’s fist coming. He staggered backwards, tripped on the tangled blanket, and fell. Blood poured from his nose. The governess and the girls let out strangled gasps.

            Francesca shook out her hand, then crossed her arms.

            After a dazed moment the boy rose. He wiped his sleeve across his bloody face. “You’ll pay for this!” He turned and marched toward his horse which nibbled at the boxwood hedge. “Wait ‘til I tell my father.”

            “Yes, I hope you do,” said Francesca. “I’m sure the baron will be happy to hear that his son was beaten by a little girl.”

            Bencino stopped in his tracks. He turned and glowered at Francesca, his face turning red. Then he continued toward his horse, though much less purposefully. He climbed into the saddle and gathered the reins. Aiming the horse directly at Francesca, he whipped the crop against the horse’s hindquarters.

            Francesca jumped out of the way as the horse barreled past her and leapt over the hedge.

            Camella and Gabriela ran to Francesca who frowned as she surveyed the ruins of their tea.

            “Why didn’t you run away?” said Camella.

            “Why should I? It’s our tea.”

            “But he’s the baron’s son,” said Camella nervously plucking at her skirt.

            “That doesn’t give him the right to frighten you and break your things.”

            “Yes, it does,” said Gabriella with a slight shiver.

            The governess came and stood behind the twins. “The baron would be within his rights to confiscate all this land.”

            “Over a bloody nose?” said Francesca.

            “Over an assault on his son.”  

            The fire drained from her veins and a cold ball grew in her stomach. “He, he, wouldn’t.”

            When the governess marched Francesca and the twins inside, they found Papa and Uncle Tino still in the den. Papa saw Francesca’s red welts that were quickly bruising and stormed off, calling for the baron. Uncle Tino caught him before he’d gone far and directed Papa through a doorway and closed the door. Francesca could hear both men yelling from inside.

            Papa and Uncle emerged a few minutes later calmer, but with red faces. Papa took a deep breath, then turned to Uncle Tino. “I expect it’s time we headed home.”

            Uncle Tino nodded. “I’ll send someone to find your boys.”

            As the group made their way to the front door, the baron appeared from the dining room. He was taller than Papa, thin and effeminate, but his eyes burned. “So, this is the girl,” he said, heading for Francesca.

            “Yes, my lord,” said Uncle Tino. “They were just leaving. The maestro wishes to get her home so he can punish her privately.”

            Francesca resisted the urge to back away as the baron approached. Her heart pounded.

            The baron grabbed her chin with finger and thumb and tilted her face roughly to see her bruised cheek and neck. “And severely, I trust.”

            Out of the corner of her eye Francesca saw Papa start forward, then check himself. “Of course, my Lord.”

            The baron released her face with a slight shove and looked at Uncle Tino. “Then we’ll speak no more of this.” He turned and left.

            Everyone but Francesca seemed to deflate as they let out their breath.

 

            Shadows were beginning to lengthen as they stepped outside. Already their carriage, a covered post-chaise with a tan body with black trim, waited. Antonio and Sebastian approached along the path to the woods.

            “I’ll send along your things,” said Uncle Tino. Then he took the maestro’s arm. “The girl’s a menace, Thurio. She’s practically feral.”

            “Not true.”

            “You spoil her.”

            “I treat her exactly like her brothers.”

            “That’s precisely my point.”

            The children climbed in, Francesca and Antonio taking the seats facing backwards and Sebastian facing forward, leaving a space for Papa.

            Papa and Uncle Tino spoke beside the carriage. Uncle’s face was earnest. “I can imagine how difficult it is to raise a girl without a mother, but you do her no favors by treating her like her brothers. How is she ever to learn her place?”

            Uncle Tino paused. Then he linked his arm with the maestro and turned him so that they were facing away from the carriage. He dropped his voice. “Take her home. Give her a good thrashing. Knock the spirit out of her. Teach her that she’s nothing, for if you don’t do it with love, someone else will do it with malice.” He shook his head. “No one will have her to wife this way. She’ll be good for nothing but the convent.”

            “I appreciate your concern,” said the maestro. “Goodbye, Tino.” He nodded to the driver as he climbed in, and they headed down the driveway.

            Francesca sat opposite Papa. She looked at him, but he avoided her eyes. They were quiet as the carriage turned out of the long, curved driveway onto the road.

            Sebastian giggled. “We heard that Francesca beat up a baron.”

            The maestro’s eyes flashed to Francesca, and they were full of deep sorrow. “It’s no laughing matter. The baron could have brought charges or had her flogged.”

            “But then he’d have to admit in public that a girl beat up his son,” said Antonio.

            “Did I do wrong, Papa?” asked Francesca. “You always say that it’s honorable for the strong to protect the weak.”

            Papa leaned forward and put his head in his hands.

            “You’re supposed to be the weak, idiot,” said Antonio.

            “Hush,” said Papa.

            “Why?” said Francesca. “I’m stronger than Camella and Gabriela. Shouldn’t I protect them?”

            “I wish it were that simple,” said Papa.

            “Why can Bencino be a bully just because his father is a baron? It’s not right.”

            The maestro looked up and laid a gentle hand on Francesca’s bruised cheek. “No, it’s not.” He leaned back, his voice becoming stern. “But actions have consequences. You’re confined to your room for a week.”

            Francesca frowned. She knew better than to argue and turn her punishment into two weeks. She stared angrily out the window at the cypress trees passing by. I was in the right. I know I was. Why should I be punished? It’s not fair. Actions only have consequences for some, she thought.

            She had hated seeing the twins so frightened by Bencino. It was worse to see Papa and Uncle afraid of the baron. Papa was worth a hundred barons. It made her angry to the very core of her being. She didn’t care about the sting of her welts, or the week in her room. It was worth it to see justice done, if only briefly.

            She was right, and she’d do it again if she had to.