Wolf Omega: Lykanos Chronicles 2

The Duchy of Milan, Spring 1693

“I don’t know if you’ll be a good match for him or not,” my mother admitted in quiet confidence. Her answer came slowly as she focused on the white blooms she gently wove into my dark hair. “Your father is satisfied by Signore Alfonsi’s proposal, and I trust in his decision—as should you.”

Like everything else Mother said to me in private, it was a logical and bluntly honest statement. But it wasn’t the answer I sought during the moments just before I would become the man’s bride.

Signore Cecco Alfonsi was a lean, dusty blond merchant with intense and deeply set gray eyes that somehow suggested a sense of urgency regarding any matter. He had purchased a harvest of vegetables from Father earlier that week when the subject of my betrothal came up. They decided I would become Alfonsi’s bride and live in Morbegno, a town far down the Adda River.

During the brief preparations, Cecco declined my family’s suggestion to travel to Morbegno for the wedding party. To advertise our poverty amongst his middle-class peers would only hinder Cecco’s goal to one day mirror their success. Though he wore the finer garments of a merchant, I later learned my husband was one of the poorer businessmen in town, and he had no desire to sink even further. Upon seeing me for the first time, Alfonsi admired my clear, glowing skin, and admitted I was just as lovely as Father had promised him. He agreed that a simple ceremony in Dazio would satisfy him.

“What will I do in Morbegno?” I implored mother. “Father said Signore Alfonsi isn’t a farmer. Will I have to work?”

“You’ll work plenty,” she answered with an impatient nod of her head. “He’s not a nobleman, to be certain, and only a nobleman’s wife avoids toiling in her home. You’ll also bear him a family.”

An intense fear seized hold of me, and I couldn’t hide the change in my expression.

“What if I can’t?” I whispered.

“You will,” she insisted.

In addition to my younger sister and me, mother had delivered seven other children: two boys and five girls. Most were premature, but all were stillborn. Father named their first son at the moment of his birth. But the infant’s lifeless body had pained Father so profoundly that he refused to name his other children until they were sure to survive. By my fifteenth birthday, he had buried seven infants in a small plot of nondescript soil miles away from the farm.

I made the mistake of once asking Father why he had not buried them on our land. With startling sincerity, he declared that it was necessary to keep them from haunting our crops.

That idea never left me.

“But what if I can’t?” I pressed. “What if—”

My mother took hold of my shoulders to stop me.

“Gabriella, you’ll have a different life there,” she assured me patiently. “You won’t be a lady, but you’ll never starve with Alfonsi, as we often do. And you’re a beautiful girl. His children will be born healthy.”

She tried to keep her voice even, but I saw the pain hiding behind her eyes. I had inherited the same liquid auburn eyes, with lashes that fluttered tellingly when we were anxious. Frustratingly honest and quick, they were also incapable of hiding the slightest truth.

Later that afternoon, a village elder officiated the wedding ceremony. This unconventional point didn’t sit well with my new husband. During the wedding feast, he repeated more than once that we would need to see a priest upon our arrival in Morbegno.

“It is God’s law,” he pressed.

Still, after several glasses of wine and laughter, Cecco didn’t hesitate to take me to his bed.

At thirty years old, the man was twice my age. Despite my mother’s basic instructions, I relied upon my husband to take the lead in my marital education. The bridal night had been painful, but to his credit, Cecco showed me great tenderness in the privacy of our marriage bed.

Days later, when we arrived at his house in Morbegno, Cecco set aside his prior insistence on a proper ceremony in favor of an ardent return to business. He quickly set upon his first task: to improve his standing within the local merchant’s guild.

“You must learn to dress like their wives if I’m to succeed,” he postulated. “I’m a married man now, and a beautiful wife is a great asset amongst those excellent men.”

“What would they want of me?” I asked with concern.

Cecco smiled lovingly at my misdrawn conclusion.

“They want their wives to consort only with other respectable women,” he clarified. “A wife is a marker of success in their eyes, and no guild member would ever socialize privately with a bachelor. But no amount of finery could ever outshine the gift of beauty, and doors will open to me everywhere when they see you.”

“Why did it matter that you were unmarried?”

“I’ve always been a boy to them,” Cecco explained seriously. “No matter my talent for negotiation, they’ve only ever seen me as a novice. Their sons were all married before they could grow beards. But my father was a laborer, and my apprenticeship with Signore Bizarre bestowed me with nothing more than a foot in the door.”

My husband stopped his story and took my hand to kiss it.

“I mean to have a seat at the table now,” he confided.

No man had ever spoken so plainly to me. Father had been unguarded at times, but his days in the field were long, and his patience for discourse was short. For the first time, I felt I was more than an insignificant part of the world. I was now on Cecco’s side, and his deference made me feel valued as never before. I was committed to doing everything I was capable of to help make his dreams come true.

Cecco’s house was built on the second and third floors of a handsome ashlar masoned building, only a block away from the central town square. Though the people of Morbegno might describe the building as modest, I’d never seen such towering structures before. The building’s first floor housed his business, where various forms of merchandise were stored, all of which changed with each season’s coming.

He had two younger men who worked under him, managing shipments and facilitating trades. They were the first strangers to ever acknowledged me with respect. “Signora,” they both greeted me, bowing deeply when my husband introduced me as his new bride.

Despite the house’s comparative modesty, it was large enough for Cecco to install me in my very own room. This was a thrilling luxury that no girl from my village had ever enjoyed to my knowledge. Even when he hired a servant to assist me, the older woman slept in separate quarters.

Apollonia aided me with my household chores, particularly with cooking, which the modesty of my upbringing had provided little training for. But more important to my husband, Apollonia could sew stylish, finely crafted garments. Their beauty took my breath away, and when I wore them in public, she would complement them by dressing my hair like a fine lady’s.

By Cecco’s admitted calculation, it was an ingenious method for making me presentable within even the finest homes. Apollonia made me look as if I belonged in those houses, where wives only wore store-bought dresses, but at a cost that would not bankrupt Cecco.

By the time we received our first invitation to the guild president’s home late that summer, I was well prepared for the role I must play. At Cecco’s insistence, I adopted the maiden family name of Nosate, and my fictional parents lived in Sondrio.

It was not a burdensome disguise to maintain, as my real family did not have a name. Father called himself Marco di Parravicini, but that was the lord’s surname upon whose land he served as a boy; only one step up from a bastard’s name. Unique surnames were not yet common for people of my parents’ class. The challenge of my deception rested solely on my ability to memorize and describe my new history.

“She’s lovely, Signore!”

Sofia Vervio seemed genuinely thrilled upon our arrival at her house. Her loud fawning drew a proud smile from Cecco.

“You’re too kind,” he bowed with deference to our hostess.

Before Cecco could continue, Sofia seized my arm and left him behind to find his way to the other men.

“Gabriella was my grandmother’s name,” she whispered to me. “You have her eyes, my dear. I noticed them the moment you stepped through the door.”

Sofia was much closer in age to my husband, and she was the finest woman I’d ever seen. Though her natural beauty was undeniable, she carried herself with a fluid grace that seemed otherworldly. Dressed in the finest velvet and pearls, the woman managed to eclipse all the finery within her luxurious home.

Sofia quickly led me to her private salon, a sumptuous room of polished marble and lacquered woods that blazed in the candlelight. Here, I found several other women had already congregated to socialize before dinner.

“This is Alfonsi’s new bride,” she announced to her guests when their faces turned to receive me. “He married her in Sondrio.”

“What’s your father’s name?” one woman pried with a mildly suspicious tone.

“Signore Luca Nosate,” I confirmed. “He’s a wool merchant. Our home is off the Piazza Garibaldi.”

I made mental notes of the remaining details I’d promised to drop before the night was through.

“Do you see her eyes, how lovely they’re set?” Sofia asked. “My mother would faint if she were here now. Gabriella looks just like her mother-in-law… and they despised each other.”

The ladies all laughed in unison at the unmasked smirk of our hostess.

“Nonna even had the same name, if you can believe. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn we’re somehow related. Our family also lived in Sondrio a century ago.”

“How does Signore Alfonsi know your father?” the prying woman asked.

“They’ve had business dealings for several years,” I answered effortlessly.

“That’s a beautiful dress,” she changed course. “Did you bring it with you from Sondrio?”

“Yes,” I smiled, taking the compliment as the first real sign of success at my fitting in with these women. “I’ve not yet visited any shops here. You all look so fair—your clothes must come all the way from Milan. Where do you recommend I should start?”

“There are a couple sellers I could send you to,” Sofia answered warmly. “I’m certain you would love them.”

“Your father must have provided quite a dowery,” the other remarked with an obnoxious tone. “Signore Alfonsi never seemed to live so comfortably in the past.”

For the first time, I took full measure of the prying woman. Several years older than me, I saw her fuller figure seemed painfully uncomfortable within her tight dress. Framed by limp blonde hair, she had a pained face accentuated by a wide nose that reminded me of a sow.

“My husband lives modestly,” I answered evenly, “but he is young and until recently had no reason to live comfortably. It’s a wife’s duty to make a home comfortable, don’t you agree? Cecco is the most intelligent man I’ve ever met. I’ve no doubt that together we’ll one day create a home nearly as beautiful as Signora Vervio’s.”

“That’s very kind of you to say,” our hostess responded with a modest smile.

“It surprises us, is all,” the sow continued, “that your father was agreeable to the arrangement.”

For the first time, I noticed Sofia avert her eyes. It seemed she agreed with the sow’s point, even if she wouldn’t loan her voice to the belief.

I felt color spread over my face, and I took a restrained breath to keep my composure before answering the woman’s vile comment.

“My father wanted the best for me, and he has always held my husband in high regard,” I said pointedly. “I’m surprised you would—”

I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen and stopped. The break drew silence from the group as they waited to hear me return fire.

“That’s enough, Liana,” our hostess scoffed quietly. “You’re upsetting her.”

“No,” I insisted. “Forgive me, I’ve not felt myself the past couple of days.”

The pain shot through me again. This time it brought a wave of nausea along with it. I couldn’t help but sit backward to tug at the sides of my dress for support.

“May I bring you something, dear?” Sofia asked, and she placed a concerned hand on my arm.

When I didn’t respond, she took hold of my face to examine my fallen eyes and pressed her hand to my forehead, searching for something to account for my state.

And then she drew her breath deeply in warm surprise.

“Madonna,” she whispered with a sparkle, and two of the other women made the sign of the cross.

Sofia kissed my cheeks lovingly, then rose from her sofa to dash across the room on her way to the men’s salon. The clacking of her elegant shoes echoed like a drumbeat across the gleaming marble floor.

“Signore Alfonsi, come quickly!” she yelled joyously. “Your wife is with child!”