The Scarlet Contessa. Jeanne Kalogridis

Together, they make an upside-down numeral four.”

      Matteo noted them and looked sharply at me. “They do,” he said.

      “It’s a man, do you see? He’s upside down—and his one leg is bent and crossed over the straight one, to make the four.”

      “The hanged man,” he whispered. I could not read his tone.

      “Well, perhaps,” I said, relaxing my focus and letting my imagination roam. “Perhaps, if one slipped a rope over his ankle and dangled him upside down, and he bent one knee . . . Matteo, that man is you.”

      I looked back at him to see his reaction. I expected him to smile and think it was a fanciful little joke. But he was studying me with the same intensity he turned on his ciphers.

      “What does it mean?” he asked.

      I looked back at the hanged man, and was filled with sudden dread. Some very bad things were going to happen, but they would bring about great good. Good that Matteo would heartily approve of.

      “Changes are coming,” I said truthfully. I could not bring myself to say that they would be unbearably hard.

      It was a warm night, but the breeze stirred as I spoke. He shivered slightly, and composed himself.

      “How often do you see these . . . signs, Dea?”

      “They’re everywhere,” I answered, heartened by the fact that he did not scoff. “I just notice them at some times more than others. But they are always true.” I hesitated. “Bona would say this was from the Devil.”

      “Bona would be wrong,” he said, more quickly than I think he wanted to, for he stopped himself and remained silent for a moment. “Have you mentioned this to anyone else?”

      “No one. I hoped you might understand.”

      “I do. And you should never, ever speak of this to Bona or anyone else.” He paused. “It’s not from the Devil. But some people think it is, and that makes it dangerous to discuss. People have been killed for less.”

      “I’ll speak of it only to you.”

      “I would appreciate that—if you see something you think I should know about.” His tone warmed. “You must be who you are, Dea, and must never stifle such a talent. But only you and I should know.”

      I smiled, pleased that my husband and I shared a secret.

      He glanced back up at the sky. I took advantage of the moment to reach up and press my hand to his warm cheek. He smiled down at me, but upon seeing the look in my eye, drew away, and went back to the others.

      I was, however, not easily discouraged. In those days my chaste pecks upon waking and retiring began to stray from his cheek toward his lips. I remarked on the fine appearance he made, on my great good luck of having him for a husband, on my constant gratitude for his kindness. When he worked too long past midnight, I would go to him and set my cheek upon his shoulder and plead sweetly for him to join me in bed. I yearned for yet feared his touch.

      In every case, I was rebuffed kindly, subtly: Matteo avoided my kisses by turning his face gently away, and slipped his hand from my grip when I held on too long. My compliments brought small, tenuous smiles and averted gazes. In the first few days of November, as Matteo settled at his desk, while I, in my nightgown, stoked the fire, I asked over my shoulder:

      “Would it be so horrible, then, if we were to truly live as man and wife?”

      His long silence served as answer. I looked back at the flames, humiliated and struggling to hide my tears.

      After a time, he said softly, “I love you, Dea. But never in that way.” He paused. “I’ll be leaving in a few days for Rome. Cicco has asked me to go on the duke’s behalf. Perhaps when I return, I’ll be able to explain things. Perhaps later we could go together to Florence, to meet some of my friends there.”

      “Florence!” I whispered harshly. “What has Florence to do with anything?”

      His expression grew sorrowful; after a long moment, he said, “If you understood, you would not be angry. Please, Dea, trust me for a little while longer.”

      I answered nothing, but took a few more savage thrusts at the fire with the poker, then went to bed sulking. Eventually, I tired of my self-pity and fell asleep.

      Some hours later I woke in the dead of night. The room was black; the single window was shuttered and Matteo had put out the lamp, but he did not lie beside me. Instead, he trod with bare feet slowly, lightly, over the carpet and the stone, gesturing with his arms in the darkness. As my eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light, I saw him pause in front of the south wall and make a complicated, sweeping gesture, and heard the faintest of murmurs—softer than a whisper, yet oddly authoritative—issue from his lips. After this, he made a quarter-turn to face west, and again gestured; by the time he faced the north wall, I surmised that he was drawing stars in the air, and connecting them with a circle.

      The realization pricked the hairs on the back of my neck: Stars and circles belonged to the realm of magic, and Bona had drilled into me that such things were of the Devil. Yet only half of me took fright; the other half was keenly interested, and even comforted, for Matteo’s circle enclosed the entire room, including the bed where I lay. Like him, I was sheltered from whatever evil lurked beyond the perimeter.

      In the darkness, my husband summoned no demons, invoked no dead. Instead, he stood in the circle’s center, at the foot of our bed, and spread his arms, his face turned toward the invisible sky. He was, I decided, praying.

      The next morning I did not speak of it to him; nor did I mention it over the next few days, though he continued nightly to draw the stars. As he packed for his Roman journey, he grew increasingly pensive; I felt at times that he was on the verge of telling me a great secret, but something held him back.

      Morning and evening, I prayed at Bona’s side in the chapel: Let Matteo’s acts be good, not evil. Let him love me. Keep him safe.

      He departed for Rome on a chill November dawn. He would not let me go with him to the stables, even though it was early and Bona would not expect me for an hour. Instead, he turned, dressed in his heavy woolen cloak and cap, and stopped as I tried to follow him out the door of our chamber.

      “Dea,” he said. “Let me take my leave now, and quickly.” To my surprise, he clasped both my hands very tightly, and studied my face as if he thought to find something unexpected there; his eyes were so bright, so filled with affection that I thought he was about to kiss me full on the lips.

      “Quickly,” I agreed. “I don’t care for good-byes.” I closed my eyes and leaned in, eager for the kiss.

      It did not come. He let go of my hands abruptly, and when I opened my eyes, he was reaching for something around his neck. He pulled it over his head and handed it to me; I stared at it for an instant as it dangled from his long fingers.

      A tiny black key, strung upon a leather thong. I stared at it in surprise.

      “Use it,” he said, “in case of emergency.”

      “For the compartment in the wall,” I said, disbelieving, “where you keep your papers.”

      He nodded.

      “Why do you not just give it to Cicco?”

      “Because those papers are not for Cicco,” he said, in a way that awakened gooseflesh on my arms. “Or for anyone else but you, and then only in an emergency.”

      “There will be no emergency,” I warned him sternly as I took the key and hung it round my own neck. His statement provoked a thousand anxious questions: If you haven’t been working for Cicco, then who? Why? What sort of papers are these? But I asked none of them; he was standing in his cloak in the doorway, ready to leave. “I’ll return this to you when you come home.” At Christmas, I almost added, and realized how very long he would be gone.

      “Dea,” he said softly, and tried