The turnips need scrubbing!

Historical fiction | Costanza Piccolomini | Baroque Rome

The worst thing imaginable happened to me a couple of months ago. As an author, that is. After spending months on half a novel, an unfinished work of which I was very proud, I saw the announcement (most likely on social media, but I tried to block it out):

A historical fiction about Costanza Piccolomini, the sculptor Bernini’s lover, enemy, muse, is being released. She was also a shrewd art collector.

A huge blow! She’s my Costanza! My character! My book!

I haven’t yet read Rachel Blackmore’s book. I’m sure it’s fabulous and I will love it…I just need a bit of time.

Of course, Costanza is neither mine nor Rachel’s. She is a woman – a character – a figure in her own right. So, I’d like to share some details of her life with you through the medium of fiction.

The first two chapters are here. If you like these, please let me know by way of comment and I will post more.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) – Constanza Bonarelli

---

30^th November, 1662, Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome.

Everything must be pure for prying eyes

Costanza is surprised to be watching her own funeral. 

So, this is death. Not nearly as final as she has been led to believe. Her fingers, she sees, are bruised at the tips. Her lips are purple; fine cracks have begun to carve their way through the delicate pouches that were once full and plump. She takes solace in the fact that they have dressed her in the black silk in which she planned to be buried. Even though she is now a corpse, she looks well-presented. 

Little Nina watches the folds of her mother’s dress studiously. She cannot bring herself to look at the waxy texture of her mother’s flesh, Costanza knows. A fleeting panic breezes its way through Costanza’s spirit—she wishes that her daughter would look upon her deathly face, just one last time—she is young, she will forget her mother, and everything that they have built together. 

But, unaware of her mother’s silent worries, Nina stares at the black embroidery with a staunch determination, her eyes moving back and forth, back and forth, over the silk. Her little hands are clenched before her belly. Aside from her eyes, she barely moves. Thankfully, they remain dry, unlike Anna’s. That, at least, thinks Costanza, is something. The child manages to hold herself together like she has been taught. 

A tingling permeates through the back of Costanza’s skull. This is confusing because, as she finds herself presently, Costanza is without a head. Perhaps she is still connected to her corpse, which would explain the excruciating, biting cold. 

It’s difficult to believe that she is here, hovering, some awkward spirit, separate yet very much integral to this gathering. The tingling sensation prevails, cold and marble-like. Anna lets out another tear-sodden wail and Nina grits her teeth, grinding them lightly so that they make a familiar, disapproving clink. Under usual circumstances, Costanza would chuckle at how much wiser her eight-year-old daughter seems compared to her sister Anna. But she doesn’t chuckle now. Laughter, she finds, is a privilege reserved for the living.

A painting of Santa Caterina overlooks Costanza’s body, hanging from the chapel wall; it shows Caterina kneeling piously as she awaits the blade to sever her neck. Domenico studies the painting from behind Nina and Anna. His hands are placed upon their shoulders, his face looms between them, his eyes skim straight over her corpse and bore into the painting with a deep, analytical glint. 

Oh, here is something new!

Costanza finds that she can hover from one place to another. She moves downwards, although, it’s not really a movement, more of a gesture towards a movement; she doesn’t travel through the air, rather, she exists within it. None of this party would ever detect so much as a whisper of a breeze as she descends from the ceiling; she is completely without form. 

Costanza observes Domenico straight on, her nose almost touching his, if it could. Nina is on her right, Anna on her left.  Instinctively, Costanza tries to smell her daughter, flexing nostrils that no longer belong to her. She wants to take in the scent of Nina’s milky skin but finds that she cannot. This makes Constanza deeply sad, or at least, as close as her spirit can come to it. Her emotions have already begun to bleed into observations, acknowledgements of the physical world. 

Domenico continues to watch the painting of Santa Caterina with a pinched expression, looking straight through the airy remnants of his dead lover. Costanza recognises this look; she has seen it many times before. The candlelight accentuates his features, casts shadows upon them. 

This is the look he wears when he is unlocking, unpicking a situation. She’s seen him staring at letters concerning art dealings similarly, as well as when he views a new painting and wishes to value it. As the Papal cryptographer, he used to labour over legions of coded letters at the house, and, just the same as now, his eyebrows drew close together, his nose wrinkled, his eyes glistened. 

The flux of a fluid, formless insight pours from his mind and into Costanza’s. She wouldn’t describe it as listening to Domenico’s thoughts; they do not reach her through the medium of words. Instead, she is invited to bathe in his opinion, the colours of his mind, to see the things that even he might not recognise as his own. 

There is, of course, a numbing sadness in him. His beloved, a woman of his intellectual match (were Costanza still corporal, she would smile at this) has died. Thankfully, Nina simmers at the top of his thoughts.  There was never a doubt about that. Domenico agrees with Costanza: their little girl will survive her mother’s death. She is strong, malleable. She is, above all, clever. She knows how to work the city and its people. She knows who to keep in pocket, who to keep at distance, on whom to keep a shrewd eye. 

He continues to stare at the Santa Caterina painting. 

The greatest of shame. Domenico’s aspersion ripples through Costanza. He tilts his head and his dark eyes twitch to the left, his pupils dilating ever so slightly. As he scrutinises the painting, he suffers deep frustration; the artist has not explored the meaning of Caterina’s execution with the required gravitas. The physical aspects of the scene—the executioner’s gently sagging torso, the twist in his waist, the rippling thigh muscles of the onlookers, Caterina’s drapery—are painted with superb technical skill, but, as Domenico so often finds, the heart of the matter, the artery that should be pump from the painter’s soul to the viewer’s, does not carry.

Where is the hint of injustice at this young girl’s beheading? Where is the inquiry into the declaration of God’s will and what this means for mortals? Where is the reference to the future saint’s alleged milky blood? Her wound, he remembers the myth, did not spill out blood; it spilled milk. Surely, he thinks, milk would turn sour in the Alexandrian heat, where Caterina lived. What an insult, he ponders, that Costanza lies below this insipid, thoughtless presentation. This was not what she would have wanted. Her blood is fire. Her blood is red. 

Nina takes her father’s arm and guides him to one side of the chapel. He does not take his eyes from the painting as he moves. He is angry now. His hand trembles as he passes the many candelabras; one quick movement and he could set the place alight, starting with the Santa Caterina painting. Costanza was passion and warmth. Not this. 

There’s no possible way for Costanza to placate him, although, she doesn’t need to. Despite his pain, he knows things must be done properly. There are moments that must be left uncelebrated, there are memories that must be forgotten. Costanza chooses not to regard her own waxy face again. It is so unimportant now, that thing which defined her for so long in life. Unlike the portrait of Santa Caterina, Domenico never once put Costanza’s face under scrutiny, he never once mentioned the scar. She used to think that this was out of politeness, but, as Nina holds his hand and the Deacon enters the chapel, she realises that her earthly appearance was a source of excitement to him. It marked her, Domenico thinks, not as milk, but as blood. Not as water, but as fire. This is what drew him to me, Costanza thinks, my face held the entrance to the world’s possibilities. Like a lava-gash in the mountains. 

Costanza knows that she does not have enough time to really understand what she feels about this. 

Nina whips her pointed, upturned nose up at Domenico, frowning. Costanza understands: she is impatient that everything runs correctly, as discussed. She understands the importance of this: the honour that a burial in this most ancient building achieves, the eyes that will be on her, the memories that must be created so she can live as she pleases. Nothing must be tainted with so much of a whiff of wrongdoing, nor scandal. Everything must be pure for prying eyes. Therefore, Domenico had better not give the impression that he enjoyed anything more with Costanza than a close and profitable friendship, no matter how difficult it might be for him. Of course, Costanza’s spirit muses, as she tries to wrap her shapeless arms around Nina’s head, Domenico’s reputation wouldn’t be the one dashed to pieces were any doubt to be cast over their relationship. 

Mass is due to begin. The Deacon and his retinue are waiting just outside the chapel. Costanza continues to stare at Domenico’s face and a quiet, limitless knowledge is bestowed upon her. She feels, if it’s possible, that she is every iteration of every thought or desire or musing that has ever crossed her consciousness. She is pulled in all sorts of directions. It is not painful. On the contrary, it is thunderously calm. The last whiff of wants and worries and needs begins to abate through the thick walls, out of the basilica and into the skies over Rome.

With Mass commencing, Costanza gives Nina a final glance as she feels a distance begin to grow between her and the living. She tries to sniff, again, longing for her daughter’s scent, even though she knows it’s futile. As a consolation, she unlocks every passage leading to Nina, every door, every dark corner, every misspent moment in her fading mind. She encourages the smiles, the screams, the tantrums, the embraces, the whispers, the unsaid things, the turbulent, the calm, the pain, the indescribable joys to inundate her. 

My little Nina, she thinks, realising that she never understood how these tiny words held within them such a powerful force in the universe. My little Nina. My little Nina. My little Nina. 

For a breath of a second, Costanza is sure that she feels the pinprick weight of her daughter’s eyes between her shoulders as her spirit is dragged from the chapel, through the thick walls, and into the nave. She cannot look back; this she knows, so she doesn’t try. Instead, she allows the ancient, colourful mosaics of the Old Testament to fly past her. She picks out a few of her favourite figures, all made up from so many tiny parts: Rahab in the green dress, the sisters Rachel and Leah. 

As the formless Costanza feels herself spread into the air, she sees something that pulls her spirit back, for a few moments, delays her, grounds her. 

There, outside the chapel listening to the low, repetitive chants, is a figure dressed in dark material. He is craning his neck around the entrance, trying to see inside without being seen. Those still inhabiting the mortal world, Costanza now knows, cannot reach the spirits. Yet, the figure tilts his head as if he is listening to her, as if he can claim her last thoughts. His face is as it always was; his lower lip puckers ever-so-slightly in the centre, his chin stretches up to high cheekbones that give way to the darkest, most secretive of eyes. He looks around the apse, sensing that something lingers, something, he thinks, that he recognises. 

Costanza’s spirit succumbs to the final tug towards the heavens, just as this man looks up at her, dead on. He cannot possibly see her. However, as Costanza disintegrates into what she half-hopes will be an eternal existence, she is sure that he manages to track her. As she feels the force of his gaze, her invisible form splits into a hundred syphons. They stretch endlessly in different directions, some upwards, some sidewards, some down through the stone floor of the basilica. Undulating through each of them is a story. She has a half of a moment to decide. She selects, like fingers rippling along musical strings, the strands that she needs to digest. Time—this half a second—will wait for her. She seizes the chance to make sense of him. Of her. She seizes the chance to understand. And through the objects and the minutiae, the irrelevant beats that somehow collided to make her life, she grasps onto what she can, invades her timeline like a watchful visitor. 

She is disappointed to find herself, this time, as a root vegetable.

---

1625, a small street near the palace of the San Lorenzo basilica, Lucina district, Rome.

The turnips need scrubbing

“O! My Heavenly Father! The very soul of mine! Of hers! You’ll lead her into the lion’s den, Leo!”

The eleven-year-old Costanza keeps her eyes steady on Pan, the cat. Her stepmother’s voice rises with the heat of the shrieks Costanza often hears from below her window at night. Now, as then, her mind is sent spinning. At night, at least, she can wriggle her head beneath the linens and press her hands on either side of her ears, muffling the noise, leaving only her eyes exposed to the outside world. She can focus on the low whistle that Maria makes while she sleeps. She can catch the breeze of her sister’s breath with her eyelids. She can close her eyes and pretend, at least, that they do not mean something unimaginably terrible.

It seems like papa’s suggestion to take her to work means something unimaginably terrible. 

She is stuck in the narrow doorway leading from the kitchen, without Maria, whom papa has asked to remain upstairs. He stands in the doorway that leads to the street. The chill from outside causes the fire to wilt and spit. Papa pulls his flat hat low and wraps his cloak around him.

Costanza notices a minuscule twitch, a curl at the side of his mouth; he is pretending not to notice, but his boots are pinching his toes. They are made from the finest of leather and reach his knees, but they, like the rest of his good clothing, are a gift from the juror, his master. He would never complain, she thinks, he is too grateful for his employment and the security it brings. But, against his will, the discomfort has gnawed a path through his delicate flesh and settled in a chapped crevice. 

As her parents’ voices grow louder and urgent, Costanza is overcome with the simultaneous urge to fling her arms around her father and to burst into uncontrollable tears. In situations like these, the ones that smother her, the ones that tremble and shake, the blood rises to her head, leaving her body empty. Loud noises, angry dogs, horses that grunt, carts that derail, beggars who grab ankles, drunks who cackle, churchmen wearing black who stare, the stench of the Tiber, its fearsome swelling, the elbows at the Piazza Navona during market, the coughs when plague hits, the shouts, the screams, the running, the pounding, the vomit, the baying of the city. They all press like iron against her chest, make it difficult for her to remember that a feeling cannot suffocate her, cannot press upon her from all sides, until her limbs crack. 

She places her hands over her ears, pretending that they are made from linen, and focuses on Pan. He has turned himself to stone. Not even his whiskers move as the wind rustles past the turnips on the table, blowing dust from Tiberia’s basket and onto the tiled floor. His speckled, silky hind legs are contacted, his pupils dilated and black. 

“Don’t Pan…don’t…” Costanza whispers. 

Her stepmother’s voice shatters at the end of each sentence, crashing in cadences that rise up every time her husband tries to cut in; she talks in rasped, stolen whips. Pan, unbeknown to both adults, has laid his eyes upon a mouse. His ears rotate, irritated at the racket which threatens his hunt. The mouse has its back to him, rolling a crumb between its tiny claws. Costanza tries to catch Pan’s eye—don’t pounce now, they’ll kick you, their tempers are high and stormy—but he ignores her, enraptured, entirely focused on his unwitting rodent. 

“Tiberia…this is ridiculous! You have lost your mind, wife, please…remember your condition, your temperament, it is always a—”

Costanza dislikes the sound of her father shouting. She is used to Tiberia: a loud woman for as long as she can remember. Every facet of her stepmother is full and pulsing; her blood pushes too close to her skin, threatening to erupt. Every morning she brings her stepdaughters close to her chest, holds their heads, and hugs them with a passion that makes Maria giggle and Costanza freeze. She loves them, that has never been questioned. Everyday, when her forehead is wedged against the dark, damp underarm, Tiberia says: “My girls, signore, my sweetnesses, how lucky I am to have you in my life. Thank God, thank His Holiness, thank Santa Maria! It’s time to dress… we clean, we shop, we eat, we sleep!”

They reply, “Buona giornata, mama” and inhale Tiberia’s morning scent. She would never say it, because she knows it would be considered rude, but Costanza detects the smell of farmyard animals, a mustiness that dances on the threshold of curdling. It is a smell that Costanza associates with adults. It lingers in the corridor outside of her parents’ bedroom when they are airing it; it’s a smell of hushed voices, weathered skin, and serious conversation.

Buona giornata, mama.

Every morning, the sneer in Maria’s greeting is palpable. Costanza finds it difficult to know where her allegiance should lie. She loves her papa, so very dearly; she loves Maria, this is obvious; she loves Tiberia, who, in her own mountainous way, cares for them so well. But Maria does not want anyone to love Tiberia. She finds her smothering, calls her an asina behind her back when the three of them walk in single file to the market, keeping one hand pressed to the wall, safe from the rumble of the busy street. It is true that it is difficult to ignore Tiberia’s buttocks swinging back and forth as her basket lumbers against her thigh. 

Costanza always thinks of them as a row of geese, with Tiberia being the mother goose. She honks at anyone who gets too close to the girls, snapping her neck back, flapping her basket. She would, however, never say this aloud.

The baby in Tiberia’s belly is a miracle. Everyone in the house—even Maria—believes this. She prayed at the basilica every morning, mid-morning, midday, and evening, for six years. Then, the child was planted in her. Before he leaves for the palazzo in the mornings, papa kisses Tiberia’s rounded middle as she grinds the spices, and he whispers an inaudible prayer into the folds of her dress. He cups the bottom of the bump like he would an enormous drinking cup and looks up at his wife’s beaming face. “As I knew,” he says. “As I trusted.”

It’s a blessing that Maria has not noticed how Tiberia bows her neck over the mortar when papa leaves the house. Tiberia has taken to sniffing, once, twice, three times, and then gulping laboriously, like she is swallowing communion. This is a sign of deep gratitude, Costanza thinks, and caution. 

“O Maria, Ave, O Maria…” 

In the kitchen today, Pan remains enraptured by the mouse. Tiberia grips the table, her knuckles white, her eyes wide. Costanza does not move from the doorway. She has convinced herself that if she stays perfectly still, then the room will not notice her. And if the room does not notice her, then she will escape whatever it is that she thinks she should be afraid of.

“You upset yourself, Tiberia!” Papa rests his head against the door frame, his cloak billowing into the kitchen. “You are worrying the child!”

“She has reason to worry, as should you!” Tiberia throws a turnip into the pot and bangs her fists against the table. The mouse draws itself up to attention. Pan flattens his ears and licks his lips. Tiberia picks up another turnip, shaking her head at the vegetable as she scrubs it. She does not look up as she speaks, lowering her voice. “There are eyes everywhere, Leo. You are not stupid, you know this. She cannot be associated with that…that barbarian—”

Papa turns towards the door and pulls it closed. “The cardinal…”

Tiberia snorts and looks to the heavens. “The title his birth affords him, nothing more! And his family is no longer in rule.”

“His uncle—”

“God rest His Holiness’ soul,” Tiberia says. She discards the turnip and touches her temples. “But His nephew was not born of the same blood. This, I swear, is true.”

Now it is papa’s turn to look to the ceiling. He raises a finger before his face, his amber eyes glinting with some knowledge that seems beyond both Costanza and Tiberia. “He…no, wife, let me finish…he, I promise you, I give you my word, will not give her a second look. Trust me on this, cicera.”

“You’ve seen the notes on the Pasquino, you know the rumours. Dark, those stories are, the man is animalistic, Leo.” 

Costanza allows a gasp to leave her throat. A shadowy beast forms in her mind. It is grown from the screams and the stench of the streets. Why would papa want her to go to such a man’s villa? 

The clink of papa’s boots moves towards her and then his chilled hands are on her face, which is hot and inadequate against the cool steadiness of his palms. He is a tactile man; he trains the juror’s horses at the palazzo by touch and whispers. Costanza has seen him placate even the most skittish of mares by stroking their long noses, patting their necks, their cheeks. His hands, she believes, have special healing powers.

When she and Maria were small, before Tiberia and Rome, he would let them run in the fields, through the vineyards, allowing them to pick unripe grapes and spit them out as they shrieked that they were sour! So sour! He taught them both how to be patient; how to help the vines thrive. He showed them which flowers should be picked to divert all the plant’s strength to the fruit, he showed them how to pick the grapes with their fingernails in a sharp, sure tug, making sure that they did not damage the delicate green veins. He liked to recite a proverb as they tended to the vines. Sine Cerere et Bacco Venus friget. Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus freezes over. Without food and wine, love cannot flourish. 

His touch, Costanza is sure, has the power to put all things in their place. It brings her a new perspective. It positions her within the world. 

The bitter taste of unfermented grapes finds its way from the vineyards, along the country roads, down their narrow street behind the basilica, through the kitchen door, into her tastebuds. She blinks and, in a small voice, repeats the ancient words.

“Sine Cerere et Bacco Venus friget.”

Tiberia mutters, “If the child thinks proverbs will save her…”

Papa’s eyes flick to Costanza’s cloak which is folded on the back of a chair. He kisses her on the forehead. Then, he turns to his wife, his cicera, leaving Costanza to straighten her back and nod, assuredly, possessed with the sense of a decision being made. The household has a baby on the way and two daughters nearing marriageable age. Papa is right; if Alfonso requests that he brings a daughter to the Cardinal’s palace, then she should go. No matter how little she understands of this. No matter what the Cardinal has done or hasn’t done. It would show ingratitude not to. Ingratitude that another staffiere might not show. Why would Alfonso want an ungrateful groom when he can have a grateful one? Venus is cold without Ceres and Bacchus. Love needs bread and wine to survive. The same is true of the Piccolomini household. If papa can show bravery, then so can she. 

A clatter from inside the pantry signals that Pan has finally made his move upon the poor mouse. She is pleased he won’t go hungry. She is, as always, sorry for the mouse. His claws make a soft scratching sound as he plays with his prey; his useful, fatal dance of death, exhausting the mouse as he blocks its way with one paw then the other, one paw then the other, left, right, left right. Costanza’s forehead grows red as she turns to face the adults. 

“Should we leave, then?” she says. Anxiety drips down from her forehead and over nose like molten wax. She avoids Tiberia’s wide eyes and walks towards her father, wrestling into her cloak, injecting purpose into her feet. Again, she is torn between allegiances. Tiberia will hate her, surely. She will think that her change of heart signals an unholiness, some dark, hubristic desire. 

As she squeezes past the kitchen table, Tiberia grabs her arm and tugs, pulling her into the familiar mess of peelings, soil, and discarded vegetables.

“He is monstrous, Leo.” She speaks to her husband but wraps Costanza in her honeyed stare. “We must keep our girls clean, they are our zitelle, they are our duty, our responsibility. Heaven knows what association with the Borghe—”

Papa is halfway out of the house when he whistles through his teeth. “She won’t be alone, cicera. My Costanza alone in the Borghese casino? You think I would do this? We’ll barely be there long enough to catch a glimpse of the Cardinal.”

“A glimpse!” Tiberia hauls herself to her feet and pulls Costanza towards the table, gesturing her to start scrubbing the pile of dirty turnips. For her, the fight is not yet over. “Please, Leo!”

Costanza, her arm still in possession of Tiberia, focuses her attention on a misshapen turnip. It is ugly, she thinks. It is bulbous in all the wrong places. Top-heavy and asymmetrical, as if forgotten entirely by God. She likes its ugliness. She likes how it deviates from the other turnips, snubs them, grows voluptuous and large where it shouldn’t. She sees where it breaks the form expected of it. She loses herself in thoughts about whether God creates turnips or, indeed, any of the market goods in the image of the most heavenly vegetable, until papa’s exasperated cry distracts her. 

“Cicera—!” Papa stops himself from saying whatever he was about to and scratches his cheek, clearly deciphering how best to assuage his wife’s fears. “All I know is that Alfonso has been invited to the Borghese casino. He is frail, he needs his most capable staffiere at his side and he sees it as a good event for a young woman to attend. He is being kind, Tiberia. I don’t see what the problem could possibly be…” 

She cannot help but experience a gush of pride at this. Her father, she knows, is the most trusted of all the juror’s household staff. This is why he is bestowed so many gifts. This is why he attends social gatherings that would be far beyond the wildest dreams of most servants. She prods the ugly turnip with her free arm. 

“She will not be in danger, and it would look strange, no? If I refused? It is an honour to be invited at all. An honour for Costanza.”

The word honour does nothing to relax her. If anything, it makes her insides shrink even more. But, she will remain strong. She has as good as promised papa. She has the idea that she might take the ugly turnip with her to the Borghese palace. She fancies that its lumps and bumps might protect her; she wants to tuck it under her camicia like a spare, strong heart. 

“Then why not Maria?” Tiberia asks papa, her eyebrows arching into pitted domes. Yes, Costanza thinks quietly, why not Maria? Why her? Why not them both? It would be much better to have the two of us. 

“Alfonso worries that the galleria will become too crowded.”

Tiberia snorts and her body jiggles with its force. With Constanza’s hand still in hers, Tiberia instinctively rubs her belly as she laughs. Costanza does not expect the fleshy mound to give way so easily; it is oddly soft and malleable. 

“Leo,” Tiberia coos, the reminder of her pregnancy soothing her temper. “You are a terrible liar, but I am grateful for it.” She bows defeatedly at her husband. “Maria shall prepare dinner with me, then? You’ll be home? We can fetch some wine. There will be much to tell, I’m sure.”

Papa’s eyes flicker towards the corridor that leads to the narrow staircase to the first floor, upon which Maria will be sitting with her ear pressed to the wall, her knees tucked to her chest. From the look on his face, she realises why Maria has not been invited: he loves her, but he does not trust her to behave. He does not trust that he can keep her safe. She has a habit of letting words stream from her mouth whenever the mood takes her. It is because I am frightened, Costanza thinks, that I am honoured.

“Alfonso has sent a carriage to wait outside San Lorenzo,” papa says. He walks outside and waits for her to follow. She glances down at her turnip. Tiberia has closed her eyes and is pressing gently on her stomach, waiting for the baby to kick. Seizing her chance, she snatches the vegetable up and runs her fingers over it, trying to let it know that its imperfections are her strength. She wiggles it down the small gap between breasts and camicia, wedging it under the rigid flank of the carpetto Tiberia has given her. The clothing sags around her slim ribs, so the turnip fills the spare space, nestles comfortably against her skin. 

A proud meow sounds from under the table, followed by Pan’s pointed face, specked ever so slightly with blood. “Good boy,” Costanza mutters, bending to stroke him on the chin, offering a silent prayer for the mouse laid out at her feet. “Now you eat him up. Don’t waste him.”

Tiberia lets out a soft snore. She has fallen asleep, exhausted from the argument. Costanza hurries to the stairs and, knowing that her sister will have more questions than she can answer, calls up in a hushed tone, listing the events of the last hour more for her own benefit.

Hush, Tiberia’s dozing. She wants wine. I’m going with papa to the Borghese casino. Alfonso too. Pan’s caught a mouse. The turnips need scrubbing.