"Our wedding night is not one I remember as a pleasant one," Contessina remarked. "I was so scared."
"I'll never forget the look in your eyes when I took the knife from the table." Cosimo's eye glittered with a wide grin only the stars could see.
"I thought you were going to kill me! How was I supposed to know why you had it?" Contessina's voice grew louder.
"I can still hear my mother's voice in my head," Cosimo continued. "A bloody foot is better than a laundress's gossip." Cosimo rubbed the small slit scarred on the side of his foot. Contessina had not bled the night of their wedding, but the sheets were to be sent to the laundry the next day.
"And I can still hear your voice in my head asking if I was a virgin as you bled your foot in our bed," Contessina replied. Cosimo erupted with laughter.
"It was only a jest! Having been the one inside you, I'll go to the grave saying Contessina di Bardi was so much a virgin even the Medici struggled to sully her." The man's ribs were bombarded by two sharp wraps from his wife's fist.
"Those first weeks were awful," Cosimo said, his tone more serious but his voice still light with laughter.
"The first weeks? I'll go to the grave saying it was the first months that were awful," the man's wife retaliated.
"Do you recall that night that your nose bled? I must have just returned from that trip to Rome after we were first married." Cosimo recalled the annoyance he'd felt with Contessina before he'd gone; her asking if he was going to see Bianca.
"Of course, I remember!" Contessina's voice grew bubbly. "I wasn't sure you were even going to speak to me. You barged into my room, Emilia had just finished with my hair, and all you said was 'Leave us.' I wasn't sure what was going to happen! I was terrified." She'd said it like a child who was terrified of a story her father had told her the night before, not like a grown woman who was terrified of the intentions of a man.
"I don't even remember what my mother had said that had made me so angry." Piccarda had rarely said anything that did not anger Cosimo.
"It had been your father," Contessina corrected him. "He told you he expected a grandson before your next trip to Rome."
"They always put so much pressure on us…" his voice trailed off.
"I'll never forget the look on your face when I told you you had to stop," Contessina did not intend on letting the conversation take a darker turn so soon. "You were mid-stride and it was as if I'd said the house was no fire."
"I looked up and there was blood running down your face! I didn't know what to think! And then, as if we were picnicking in the woods rather than exposed to God in bed, you said 'It's nothing. It's happened since I was a child. Just get me a rag and I'll turn over.'" Cosimo's impression of his wife made the couple laugh.
"I didn't know what to do," Contessina chuckled. "You were so angry at your father—"
"The way you stated that you would simply turn over is seared into my mind," Cosimo beamed. "How awful of a husband would I have had to be to continue for my own pleasure whilst knowing my wife was bleeding profusely."
"I didn't know you." Contessina kicked herself, having unintendedly done the one thing she wished not to do. "I didn't know what you would do."
Cosimo felt the sudden shift and fought against the darkness drawing nearer in their minds.
"I'll tell you a secret. I'd been so scared of what was happening that I went soft right there, still inside you. Even if I'd wanted to keep going, I wouldn't have been able to. It would have been a horrifically embarrassing night." The room became brighter again.
"I'll tell you a secret, too," Contessina replied. "I know. I felt it."
Contessina erupted with laughter. Cosimo did the same.
It was Contessina's turn to share a story of Cosimo's embarrassment.
"If I'm not mistaken, it was not two weeks later that Emilia gave you the message that I would not be sharing your bed that week. You were furious! I could hear you shouting down the hall at your mother."
"She and Father just put so much pressure on me, on both of us, to have a child. I swear if my father had let her, Mother would have sat in the corner each night to be sure the act was being performed." Cosimo knew the exact story his wife was going to tell. He grappled with a blush he could feel spreading across his face.
"I recall. I also recall you yelling down the hall that you were to not be blamed for that week's heir conception setback. Your mother laughed so loud I swear they heard her in Pisa."
"I was such an idiot." Cosimo rubbed his brow between his thumb and forefingers. "My mother even said so."
The man's face became redder with embarrassment. "Your wife," his mother had said, "Is experiencing her blossoming the way all women have and do and will forever. Do your duty and next month you may not have to restrict yourself from her bed."
"And then I walked in to find you in bed, and I still was idiotic enough to ask you what was wrong." Cosimo could see her now, paler than usual, curled up on the bed.
"Imagine my embarrassment, having to tell my new husband to his face instead of him understanding my message tactfully sent to him with my own personal maid." Contessina had almost lied to him, that first week, and told him she was ill.
"Imagine my embarrassment, being told by my new wife to my face that she was bleeding, not out of her nose this time." Cosimo recalled how irritated she had been with him. "All I'd done was ask if you were ill and what did you do? You pulled your dress up."
Contessina giggled at herself. She'd been scared but was more irritated with her stupid husband. She figured if he knew what was happening, saw it with his own eyes, he would leave her alone, and he did just that.