I
FRANCESCA
La Repubblica di Fiorenze, Italia • Aprile 1462 Anno Domini
There was something about weddings that Francesca absolutely abhorred, even if the celebration in question was her own.
It wasn’t the large amount of money or resources spent on what would be a brief affair—that was fine; at least it accomplished something, namely making a statement to the city’s other guilds. No, what she hated was the fakeness of it, all performative gestures and barely disguised greed as people practically clung to shoes, or in this case her dress on the dance floor.
Chest heaving, Francesca slipped from between the bodies the moment the pluck of the lute, beat of the tambourine, stopped. No one turned, caught up in laughter and the dimpled smiles freely given by the man in the center, Dionisio. He pushed his light brown hair from his eyes, glazed over by wine, and Francesca’s shoulders relaxed. Good.
She had better things to do than stay here a moment longer.
A stray black strand of her own hair, free from the twisty concoction of pearls and braids on the top of her head, stuck to her forehead, slick with sweat. No one gave her any mind as she lifted her heavy navy-blue dress rimmed in gold and edged away from the dancers to the onlookers in the back. Her bejeweled fingers brushed those of a man with droopy chestnut curls, so much like Dionisio but with a face full of youth. Alessandro.
“Ready?” she whispered.
* = This is not the story’s final title
Cay Leytham-Powell 