Maddalena cursed as she looked at her bandaged hand. It still pulsed with pain but she was able to take comfort in the fact that it seemed like the wound was no longer bleeding.
“Idiota,” she mumbled to herself. She was half-asleep as she was cutting potatoes for Messer Ruscello’s dinner. Knowing the consequences that would occur if his dinner was delayed, Maddalena quickly bandaged her hand up and went back to work, relying heavily on the unreliable and dim-witted Christina. After a weary and stressed-filled night, Maddalena was only now heading to her quarters. Along the way, however, she heard something peculiar. Quiet whispers and the flicker of a candle emanated from young Francesca’s room. Deftly, she cracked the door just enough to see inside. Maddalena’s eyes filled with shock and fear.
Francesca was naked, sitting on the edge of her bed. Standing beside the bed was a muscular young man with curly brown hair that reached his shoulders. His face was lively, and he had a large smile on his face. As he put on his clothes, Francesca reached out to gently rub his back.
“I wish I didn’t have to leave you,” the man said.
“I wish so too,” Francesca replied, “but with every minute that you linger, the more we risk someone finding out you were here.”
“And what were to happen if they did?”
Francesca stopped rubbing the man’s back. “Giancarlo, please, believe me on this.”
Giancarlo said nothing as he stared through the open window. “Run away with me,” he finally said.
“Have you lost all of your senses?” Francesca rebuked.
“I mean it,” Giancarlo said. He turned around and held her in his arms. “We can go somewhere, anywhere you want to go.”
“Do not be ridiculous.”
“I am not! Isn’t that what you’ve always imagined? A life where you aren’t just a pawn in your father’s ambitions? You could be whoever you want to be, you can learn whatever you desire. You could be free, Francesca. Free from this prison cell you call your life.”
Francesca looked up at Giancarlo. “But where would we go?”
“In my dreams, we’re in Venezia. Or maybe Roma, even Brescia,” Giancarlo recited. “We could travel to the ends of the earth if that would make you happy.”
She pulled him in for a deep kiss. “Let’s do it, then,” she said. “Let us run away together.” She wrested herself from Giancarlo’s hug and paced the room excitedly. “We’re going to run away together!” She said, saying it more to herself than Giancarlo. “When do we go? I need to pack, I need to say goodbye to Maria, we need food, I’ll steal some from the kitchen. When do we go?” She stopped pacing and looked at Giancarlo. “Tomorrow at midnight,” she said. “Yes, that will be enough time to get everything all set. Does that work for you?”
“
“Okay then, tomorrow at midnight it is. We’ll meet in front of the baptistry of Il Duomo and run away under the cover of darkness.”
Giancarlo gave her a deep kiss.
“Go, my love,” Francesca said, “and tomorrow we’ll start our lives together.”
Maddalena pulled back from the door in fear. “Oh no,” she thought, “this will not do. This will not do at all. That poor girl. That poorer boy. Once Messer Ruscello catches them it will be the end of them both!” She had loved Maddalena ever since she was a little girl, but she knew that nothing she said could convince her otherwise. Maddalena knew the crazy look of love in someone’s eyes when she saw it. This was the type of love that would never listen to reason. She shuddered at the thought of what she had to do.
Header Image: The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci, 1498.