He found her in the library still in her nightgown. She sat at the table with the same book open in front of her. Cosimo pulled a book at random from the shelf, placed it on the table next to Contessina, and plopped down in a chair. His leg ached but the deep throb had been reduced to mild flutters of rhythm now and then.
"You said your mother was recovered," he said, opening the book. "Why did you lie?"
"It is bad luck to tell the ailing of the ill," she responded, slowly turning the page of her book. Cosimo looked down at his text—it was in a language he did not speak.
"You should have stayed with her," he said. He stood, searching the room for something he'd hidden years ago.
"You are my husband." She responded almost in a whisper, the last word of her sentence hissing.
"And she is your mother." Cosimo pulled stray pieces of blank paper from between books on a high shelf.
Contessina was torn, she'd not wanted to leave her mother but the choice had been hers to return to her husband's bedside.
"You could have died. I worried," she replied. "I worried for your safety and…"
"What might have happened to you if I had died?" Cosimo returned to his chair. Contessina nodded.
"My father told me to look to the future. He said you are my future, and they are the past. So I returned to you."
"And what are you now? Who is for you in the present?" Cosimo asked the question the way a master would ask his servant to wake him in the early morning hours.
"Now…" Contessina thought for a moment. "Now I am a woman who sleeps next to a groaning, snoring man and prays for a child to give her a place. I am for me."
Cosimo drew a thin piece of charcoal from a fold in the paper he'd discovered and drew a few stray lines. "I don't groan in my sleep."
Contessina rolled her eyes—always he avoided her emotions and sentiments.
"You made so much noise in your fevered sleep your mother gave you medicine to push you further into sleep in hopes you'd quiet down," Contessina said. She could see it as if it had just happened—Piccarda sitting the fully-grown man up and pouring liquid into his mouth until he was forced to swallow it.
"I was dreaming, that's all." Cosimo's drawings took shape. Contessina took the lull in conversation to read a few more lines of Dante's journey through purgatory.
"I dreamt of you," Cosimo added. His wife perked up her ears. "You were at the river and before I knew it you were swept away with my brother—"
"Why was Lorenzo in the river?" Contessina asked.
"It wasn't Lorenzo. I had another brother, Damiano."
"I didn't know that," Contessina said quietly.
"But you were in the river and the water was flowing so fast and pulling you away. I tried to get to you but I had to choose between you or my brother. And then, Damiano let go. He let himself rush away with the river and I was able to get to you." Cosimo ended quietly. The sound of his charcoal filled the room.
"What happened to your brother? I mean, you never talk about him."
"He was my twin. He died when we were young. My mother—" Cosimo took a deep breath. "—has always blamed me for his death. We were sick, both of us. We shared a room and one night I said goodnight to him and in the morning I woke to my mother screaming. He'd died in his sleep. I didn't hear him dying. I didn't hear him so I couldn't save him."
Cosimo felt arms wrap around his shoulders.
"I'm sorry," Contessina said from behind him, her arms wrapping tighter around his frame. Cosimo took her arms in his hands.
"I'm sorry about your mother," he said, taking one of her hands and kissing her palm.
"I'm sorry about your mother," Contessina replied. She stood behind him for a few moments as they basked in the sun that burst through the window.
"I do find you loud and opinionated and distant at times," Cosimo began, keeping one hand on Contessina's arm while he returned to his sketch with the other. "But your illogicality rivals my own and—" He picked up the finished sketch and handed it to her. "—You are far from unattractive." Contessina held a sketch of herself, her hair lined with pearls and the dress the same as the day they'd first met. She smiled.
"There is still revolting you've left unappeased," she joked, whispering it into his ear.
"There is still time for you to change that opinion of mine," Cosimo responded, turning his face to his wife. Contessina swatted at her husband as their eyes met. He pulled her closer to him and kissed her.
They spent the majority of the day in the library, moving from the table to the window seat and eventually to the floor. They'd asked for the villa's pillows to be brought and they piled them on the hard rug to make comfortable seating.
"We could just stay here, tonight," Cosimo said, eating dinner from a tray a servant had brought.
"And do what? We can only play so many games of chess," Contessina replied. She had a vague sense of the direction her husband was attempting to lead the conversation.
"There are other nighttime activities to engage in." He winked smugly. Contessina did not reply, having stood her ground on the same subject the night before.
"Really, Contessina. This again? Did we not spend all of today fixing this anxiety of yours?" Cosimo threw down the crust of bread he had been eating.
"Your wound is not closed, Cosimo." Contessina spit out the words.
"That's not what this is about." Cosimo's voice rose in volume.
"Tell me what else," Contessina replied, sitting back on the pillows. Curiosity simmered inside her but Cosimo gave her no answer. His jaw tightened and the tendons of his neck tensed.
"You do not see me, Cosimo," Contessina finally said. "You sit there with an idea of what you'd like to happen tonight, but it is not with me. I can forego your love—Bianca may have your heart for the rest of your life. I cannot forego value. I cannot, will not, have you share my bed only so that you may spend nights with her and use me to do it. Our child does not deserve to be created from—"
"Yes, you've already said it. You do not want our child to come from a night we did not spend with each other." Cosimo's voice rose even louder. "But what of the other nights, Contessina? What of the nights before? You chose that. You wished to spend them that way."
"Only so that it would not be so painful for you. I hoped that eventually…eventually you'd realize it was not some woman in Rome in bed with you." Contessina had been so sure of her plan. Now, though, she'd realized her thoughts were not as clear as she'd intended. Her motivation was muddied; her feelings seemed illogical.
"Did you ever think to ask me how I felt?" Cosimo scolded her. "Had you, you might have known I do not care about a silly piece of cloth."
Contessina wiped angry, hot tears from her cheeks.
"I'm going to bed," Cosimo stated, grunting as he stood. He left the door open and a servant, as if waiting for him to leave, entered the room to retrieve the tray.
"The pillows may be returned," Contessina said.
She followed him into the chamber. Cosimo hid his surprise—he'd expected her to ask for another bed to be made up for her.
They'd not changed from their bedclothes, yet Contessina removed her robe and gown all the same and put on a fresh nightgown.
As Cosimo at on the edge of the bed checking his wound and re-tightening the bandages, Contessina tucked herself into the sheets and blew out her candle.
She awoke to a loud noise in the dark. Her head swiveled to her husband. He lay still in the place next to her.
A loud bang echoed through the hall. Cosimo still did not stir. Contessina reached her hand out to him. Her perception in the dark played tricks and he was closer than she'd thought. Her hand grazed his chest.
"Cosimo," she whispered, rubbing her palm against her husband's chest. He hummed in response, still captured by sleep's embrace.
"Cosimo, there is someone in the villa," she said with a hiss.
"It is just the servants," he replied. Having lived a life of luxury and comfort, he assumed all noises in the night were servants.
Another bang permeated the air. Cosimo shot up, reaching for his cane and a dagger he kept in his trunk.
"Where are you going?" Contessina asked with a near-silent voice. She threw her feet out from under the blankets and took her robe from the end of the bed. Before he answered, Cosimo had slipped out the door.
His mind was bombarded with visions of men in dark cloaks surrounding the villa, waiting for the perfect moment to take his life. Images of Milanese mercenaries or a group of Ablizzi men flashed before him.
Three more loud knocks shook the silence of the villa. There were sharp raps on the wooden doors facing the river. Cosimo pulled the door open.
"Is this the villa?" a drunken man slurred.
"I don't—"
"We want to see the villa," another drunkard said, holding in his hand a rope that looked as though it had once led an animal but was now swinging freely. Three more men stood behind the two at the door.
"You aren't—"
"You let us in," the first drunkard brandished a dull knife, "or I'll gut you like a pheasant and hang you out for the dogs to find." He took an unbalanced step toward Cosimo.
"Good evening, messers," a feminine voice said from behind the Medici man. Cosimo stood shocked at his wife's bravery and idiocy. "How might we help you?" She pulled her robe tightly around herself.
"We want to see the villa," one of the men in the back of the group said.
"Of course," she replied. "I have to ask you to pay the entrance fee, before you may enter."
"What robbery is this?" another man shouted. "You let us in, you bitch, or we will make you." His threats were empty and rambling.
"I'm sorry," Contessina continued. "Since the Medici sold the villa to us, we cannot allow people in to see the aperture unless they pay the florins."
"Sold it?" Cosimo questioned quietly.
"Aperture?" the second drunk man asked.
"Don't you know?" Contessina turned to her husband, a glint of mischief in her eyes. "There have been architects and philosophers alike coming for months asking about the aperture."
"I don't even know what a bloomin' aperture is," another man said.
"If you cannot pay," Contessina quickly said over their protests of payment. "I cannot allow you to—" She stopped, taking in a sharp breath, looking wide-eyed at the darkness behind the men. "Did any of you see it?"
The drunk men all turned around, unsure of what they had missed.
"That carriage that just passed by. Did you see the sigil on the back? The two keys and the red cord! I do believe the Pope has just passed, traveling the road in secret." Cosimo rolled his eyes at the ridiculousness of his wife's lie. Before all the men could comprehend the falsity, one of them took off toward a carriage that did exist. The rest of the men followed.
"Good luck finding the road," Contessina commented as she closed the door and bolted it. "They'll surely meet the river in no time and take a swim."
As they walked down the corridor, three servants ran towards them.
"I'm sorry, Messer, there were men at the back trying to eat the grapes from the vines. We had to stop them," an older man explained.
"It is fine, Paolo," Cosimo replied. "Just drunks from the fair. Tell the guards to double their watch tonight and tomorrow. Goodnight." Cosimo took his wife's arm and led her at a swifter pace down the hall than they'd originally set out.
"Do not ever do that again," he scolded her as they stepped through their chamber doors. Contessina continued walking toward the bed, taking her robe off and placing it back at the foot of the bed.
"You could have been harmed," Cosimo grew red in the face as he spoke the words. "What if they'd have barged in or come after you with their knives? What if there had been more of them?"
"They did not, Cosimo. They were just drunks from the fair." Contessina poured herself a small glass of wine and swallowed it in a single sip.
"And if they had not been?" Cosimo stared at her with a wet rage that dampened and put itself out with the reality of the situation suffocating the possibilities.
"It is over now. Might we return to sleep?" Contessina acted as if she'd simply awoke to relieve herself. Cosimo stepped toward her, his face only inches from his wife's.
"Never do that again," he said, sternly. Overcome by a feeling he did not understand, Cosimo kissed Contessina on the cheek. He felt as if he'd come to realize all the outcomes of every tragedy that could have occurred that night. He felt as if she'd rescued him from a blazing building and at the same as if she'd sacrificed herself to the blade of his enemy. At the same time, she stood before him, none of the tragedy coming to fruition. It was a sense of gratefulness, a sense of relief, and the anticipation of adrenaline wrapped into an overwhelming warmth that squeezed at his heart.
Contessina stared at him as he pulled away from her. They held each other's gaze for long moments before parting and returning to bed. They lay closer to each other, Contessina's fingers sensing the warmth of her husband's digits next to hers. She softly ran her hand over his, settling her fingers into the crevices of his. Sleep took her quickly.