A Golden Web by Barbara Quick Page A

daughters, as contactwith the outside world was contrary to the purposes of the cloister.
    Alessandra curtsied and kissed her stepmother’s hand. Pierina jumped down from the cart and threw her arms around her sister, sobbing unreservedly.
    “Come off with me for a moment,” Alessandra said to her, looking at her father for permission. “Is it all right?”
    Carlo nodded, and Alessandra walked off with her arm around Pierina, far enough away where they couldn’t be heard. But no words passed between them. Pierina’s eyes overflowed, but she sniffed and stifled her sobs. They hugged so hard then that it seemed to each of them their hearts would break. Pierina asked, “How will I remember her without you here to help me?”
    Alessandra had no answer for her.
    Dodo wailed when she said good-bye, kissing her wetly with his red lips, as pretty as a girl’s. Emilia cried freely, torn between sorrow at leaving three of the children behind and relief that at least there would be someone to watch over absentminded Alessandra.
    At last, when every embrace was given and every wordsaid, Carlo rang the bell and two black-clad nuns appeared. They attached themselves to Alessandra and Emilia like crows to carrion, leading them away, out of the daylight, into the cloister.

Nine
    Emilia found herself with not enough to do for the first time in all her forty years.
    Alessandra had little need and less desire for a lady’s maid. Emilia folded and refolded the items of clothing they’d brought along, and picked sprigs of lavender from the convent garden to tuck between them. She regularly brought out and aired the blue silk dress, making sure it was safe from mold and mice. But Alessandra shooed her away when Emilia tried to brush her hair or wash her feet, saying, “I cannot think, Emilia, with you fussing about me so!”
    When the day was fair, Alessandra sat in the garden to plan and dream, with a prayer book, as often as not, sitting open but unread across her lap.
    It was a silent convent, at least as regarded the professed nuns—and the lack of conversation was driving poor Emilia half mad. She’d taken to talking to Alessandra’s two finches, complaining about the scant food, the inferior quality of the linens, and the cold. She spoke of the advantages of marrying young and marrying well, of the silliness of girls who thought themselves unready for marriage, despite the fact that she herself was married and a mother by the age of fourteen. She entrusted to the birds all sorts of confidences she hoped Alessandra would overhear and take to heart.
    But Alessandra fled whenever Emilia launched into one of her one-way dialogues with the birds. She’d find a tall narrow window that let her sit and listen to the rain. She sat in the library and explored the books there—although there were only a few, and those of little interest, that weren’t to be found in her father’s library at home.
    A couple of the novices were friendly, but mostly the nuns kept their distance from her. Emilia was surprisedto see Alessandra—normally a curious and outgoing girl—show so little interest in the other inmates of the place where they would both be spending a year or more. Emilia made up for the indifference of her young mistress by forging good relationships, first in the kitchen and then in the laundry. It exasperated her that Alessandra hardly seemed to notice how the quality of both the food and their linens had improved after such a short time, thanks to Emilia’s efforts.
    For all the sweetness of her nature, Alessandra could indeed be exasperating. She seemed to keep a veritable arsenal of secret objects beneath her skirts now—a notebook in which she scribbled furiously whenever she thought Emilia wasn’t looking, and oddly enough, a knife—a big dagger of the very sort that Nicco had lost. Had Alessandra stolen it from him? Did the girl have some reason to fear for her safety? Emilia shook her head and held her counsel, except