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with intricate flower blossoms of red and emerald threads.
    I was both embarrassed and pleased when I had put on the ensemble and recognized how the combination of rose and yellow hues accentuated the gold and tawny brown color of my hair. I hadn’t realized Luigi noticed such things.
    â€œDid you enjoy the jousting?” he asked.
    â€œOh yes,” I said. “The riders were all so valiant, the horses magnificent. Like something out of Boccaccio’s Teseida . And the painted banners were exquisite. Especially the one with the nymph and Cupid that Morelli gave to Giuliano de’ Medici when he conceded their match. Wasn’t that an amazing gesture of chivalry? To give up the match and such a work of art. That flag was so . . . so . . .” I couldn’t find the right word for the thrill that banner had sparked in my heart. “So . . . lovely.” I felt my face flush.
    Blinking the way he did to focus his eyes on a piece of fabric he was assessing, my husband observed me for a moment before smiling patiently. “Yes,” he said, nodding. “Yes, it was all that.” His tone was that a fond father might use with a spirited but slightly wayward child. “It was good for the popolo to enjoy such a celebration in the cold of winter and before the deprivation of Lent. Happy memories by which to stay warm, yes?”
    Then he continued down the hallway to his study.
    Yes, just so, I thought. I’d be holding mental images of the joust to me tight as just a few years earlier I cuddled a doll to my chest to soothe me as I slept. For I still slept alone, in a small antechamber to the house’s main bedroom, where Luigi snored and flopped through the night. After a few awkward encounters to consummate the legality of our nuptials, our marriage had become a polite business union. Luigi did not seem concerned with producing an heir, despite Florence’s emphasis on family fruitfulness. Mostly we passed our nights separately and peaceably enough. At meals, Luigi talked of cloth and politics. I listened. He had certainly never asked to read my verse. I’m not sure he even knew I wrote.
    It was not the life I had envisioned or hoped for myself. I sighed and went about my business of running the household.
    â€œSancha!” I called.
    A pretty, dark-haired servant girl scurried to me. She was the type of voluptuous, olive-skinned, Mediterranean beauty that some wives might fear could distract husbands. But Luigi seemed so unmoved by matters of the flesh, I had no such concerns. And even though they were a bit scandalous, Sancha’s gossipy stories did enliven the house. Her family worked the dye vats along the Arno River, and she’d grown up hearing rumors and bawdy retorts exchanged as readily as the nobles discussed the weather.
    Sancha wiped her hands on her apron. “Ready?” she asked, reaching for the broom—her own lance of sorts. The first day I’d taken up my wifely chores in the granary, amouse had darted across my foot and up my dress in terrified confusion. Sancha had knocked it off me, and I’d crumpled to the floor in tears—overwhelmed with the commonplace feel of my new life. “There, there,” Sancha had said stoutly, petting my head like a lapdog. “No rodent will dirty my lady’s chemise, not when I’m around.” She’d been the closest thing I had to a friend in my new home from that day forward.
    â€œWere you able to see any of the joust yesterday, Sancha?” I knew she and the apprentices who slept in the Niccolini family workshop to guard Luigi’s wares had planned to elbow their way to a space along the fences.
    Sancha beamed. “Oh yes! We had such a laugh over the one lord whose hose were so tight that he couldn’t grip the horse properly. Vanity!” She lowered her voice and winked. “But the tightness of his hose certainly showed off a comely leg.”
    Knowing the rider she