Page 17 of This Vicious Hunger

Chapter Ten

I wasn’t sure you’d show up.”

Leonardo is waiting for me at my usual table in the corner of the dining hall.

I ignore the server’s expression as she watches me approach him—she’d tried to tell me she couldn’t seat me at all tonight—and slide into the free seat closest to the window.

The evening air is stuffy and smells like fresh, crusty bread.

I realise I haven’t eaten all day, and can’t actually remember the last time I did eat.

“I need to eat, Leonardo. Of course I was going to show up.”

“You could have fooled me. I’ve hardly seen you since yesterday. I was beginning to think you were avoiding me again.”

“Oh, don’t be cold,” I say with a smile.

“You were the one missing from our lecture again today.” Leonardo looks hurt, his eyes crinkling behind his glasses as he winces.

Was he missing? I thought he was, like yesterday, but maybe I simply didn’t see him.

Maybe I ignored him without realising. “I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

Leonardo helps himself to a glass of fruity red wine and attempts to pour some for me, but I place my hand over my glass and pick up the water instead.

Tonight’s meal is some kind of stew, red meat and vegetables cooked in the same university house wine.

My mouth waters at the sight of other scholars receiving their bowls and bread. Leonardo watches me with interest.

“Have you eaten at all?”

“Bits here and there.”

“Thora.”

I sigh. “What?”

“I don’t mean to sound like your mother, but you’ve got to take care of yourself here. The schedule is punishing—you’re exhausting yourself already. I can tell.”

“I’m fine. I didn’t sleep well again, and I’ve had a lot to think about today.”

“Because of your tutorial? How did it go?”

“She’s remarkable.” That’s all I’m willing to say about it. Leonardo might be studying the same field, and he might give me insight into Almerto’s studies, but doesn’t that make him some kind of… rival? Petaccia’s comment about sharing credit has been knocking about in my brain since yesterday.

Leonardo pushes his glasses back up his nose as he attempts to take a sip of wine, and I almost laugh; he’s not exactly a threat, though, is he?

“You still need to eat—”

“Leonardo,” I intone seriously. He blinks, shaken, and then that slow childish smile creeps across his lips.

“Sorry. Sorry. Can we start over?”

I shrug. “Again? You’re the one who invited me to dinner. You make the rules.”

“Then we start over.” He puffs out his chest. “I’m sorry I was an ass.

We seem to take it in turns, don’t we? But I’m just trying to look out for you—and no, no, I know you can do that yourself.

It was something my wife…” He trails off.

Short of clapping his hand over his mouth, I’m not sure there’s a way he could have made it more obvious he didn’t intend to talk about her, but rather than whatever emotion he was expecting I’m merely pleased he finally mentioned it—though it does raise more questions.

“You’re married, then? I did wonder.” Here in the dim light of the dining hall I notice what I’ve missed so far during our outdoor conversations: the pale band of skin on his wedding finger—not a ring, but where a band once sat.

“I was.” Leonardo takes a hasty gulp of his wine as the server finally brings our meal.

My stomach rumbles at the sight of the stew, fresh bread and butter, a platter of cured meats and cheeses on the side, plus a fresh bottle of wine.

I flex my fingers and take a second before diving in, rich onions and beef and wine melting on my tongue.

“What happened?” I ask, at least remembering to swallow first.

Leonardo breaks off a piece of bread and rolls the soft inner part between his fingers thoughtfully before answering.

It looks like he’s torn over what to say.

So it’s not death, then , I think. Nothing so simple.

It’s customary for widowed parties to keep their wedding rings, not least because it’s a sign of morality.

This isn’t a man who has been able to lay his grief to rest. No undertaker or sepulchre here. No, the grief is still very much there, raising its greedy little head in the tears that well in the corners of his eyes and that untanned band of skin.

My father used to tell me tales of his early years reading the death rites, and I’m reminded now of one of the stories he related, in which a young man was widowed only days into his marriage after a long, angry battle with his new bride-to-be’s father, who delayed their marriage for nearly five years.

The man was so distraught over his lover’s death that he chose to starve in his family’s private sepulchre rather than process the loss through his sister-in-law’s Silence and his own celebratory wish upon the cradle.

Leonardo strikes me as the kind of man who would struggle to let the women around him do his mourning for him, though I’d never say this aloud. He is gentler than most men I’ve met before in my life. He takes off his spectacles and wipes the lenses on the sleeve of his shirt beneath his robe.

“If you want to tell me,” I add, speaking quickly. “You don’t have to. I know you don’t really know me—”

“She left.” Leonardo stirs his already-cool stew but doesn’t eat much.

I wait. “She… I don’t really know what happened.

She was the one who pushed me to become a scholar.

I met her just after I finished my undergraduate degree.

I was torn between going to work with my father—it’s a good living but neither of my parents really wanted that—and continuing here.

Almerto approached me about continuing my studies and Clara was so very supportive. She even came to live with me.”

“At St. Elianto?”

“Yes. You probably don’t know this, but they have rooms to the west that are larger, better suited to family living. It’s where most of the professors live with their wives.”

“I’ve never seen another woman anywhere except in the dining hall.” And the garden. Though this feels different, so I don’t say it.

“They don’t mingle.” Leonardo shakes his head, finally tucking into more than a tiny bite of stew. “It’s absolutely not the done thing. But they have a little community, sort of a campus within the campus, with a greengrocer’s and on-site restaurant. Most of the women don’t work—”

“But those who do are servers here, right?”

I glance guiltily back towards the server who refused to seat me—not the same girl as on my first day, but they all look kind of similar after a while—and a hollow forms in my belly.

I’d assumed most of these women were from the village.

I cringe inwardly. It shouldn’t matter where they’re from, they’re still women, and that’s one vital lesson I didn’t expect to receive over dinner.

“Right. Some of them like the independence, and the professors like to keep it in the family, as it were. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a worse job, dealing with hungry scholars all the time.”

“Not least the ones like me who make horses’ asses of themselves by being rude.”

Leonardo’s face softens from amusement to kindness.

“Don’t beat yourself up,” he says softly.

“It’s a big change for you. Most of the men in this hall have been bred and born and raised to know that they’ll spend several years of their lives in a place like this—and many of the scholars’ wives are also scholars’ daughters or sisters.

Education runs in the family, and they’re still wary about you joining our ranks.

So you’re not the only one with prejudices. ”

I shift uncomfortably. Leonardo might be right, but that doesn’t change the way I’ve been acting. You’d think after my first day here I’d have learned. I can blame Aurelio for a lot of things, but not all of them.

“So your wife liked living here?”

“Oh, she loved St. Ellie.” Leonardo smiles, but there’s no heat in it.

“She’d be out every day walking the grounds.

She loved to walk! Lord, she’d never stop.

Dinner was always late or burnt, but she always had a collection of fresh flowers for the vase and lemons from the trees.

A year after she joined me here, things started to change.

She got distant. I started to think she was having second thoughts about staying here.

My mentorship with Professor Almerto was only newly underway, and I don’t know if she maybe decided that a few years was all she could take and that an indefinite tenure was too much?

“I thought about teaching,” he adds. “At first. It was my main motivator really. Maybe here, or maybe back in Scandessa, where Clara and I are from. And then I got into things with Almerto and I was enjoying taking all these different classes. It’s so different from when I was a young thing, always choosing my lectures based on what they could give me.

Now I choose based on interest alone. I dabble in arts and science and photography and psychology… What?”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Your face changed.”

“No, sorry. I was just thinking. Petaccia has me taking all these classes and I wasn’t sure what the point was.

I’m a scientist. I’ve read books on everything else, but science is my truest love.

So why waste all that time? She said that life breathes science, which I understand logically, but not emotionally—but then you talk about it as if its freedom and you’re right. ”

“Oh.” Leonardo tilts his head. “Yeah, learning for the sake of learning is my favourite kind. I guess Clara didn’t agree with me, though.”

“So… she just left? Without saying anything?”

“It wasn’t so straightforward. I was really busy with some paperwork and prep for Almerto’s spring classes, and Clara was distant but fine .

Vaguely I started noticing her coming home later, long after dinner, but I thought maybe she’d just made friends with some of the other wives.

She was out so late, though, and she always smelled so strange…

I didn’t really pay enough attention. I was distracted. And then she was gone.”

I let the silence sit for a minute while we both eat. It feels wrong to talk about Leonardo’s wife, or speculate on her motives, when I know him so little.

“I didn’t realise you’d done your three years here before working with Almerto,” I say eventually. “You always struck me as kind of…”

“What?”

“Kind of hapless.” I laugh, and fortunately so does he.

“I suppose I deserve that one. But, yes, I’ve been here for, what, five years now? With a little break in between.”

“You must know the campus well, then. I’m still finding my way. I’ve heard there are two libraries? I’ve only been able to find the one. And that little box of free books in the square, but that’s not what people are talking about, is it?”

“No, there is another one—right by the gates. It’s sort of hidden.

Kind of useless unless you’ve got an in with one of the librarians, because the sorting system is absolutely bonkers.

It’s worth a visit, though, if you know what you’re looking for and can find a way to ask without offending any of them. ”

“I’ll give that a go, maybe once I’ve settled in a bit more, then, if my relationship with the serving staff is anything to go by. I’m learning a lot since I got here. My husband was a society man and he tried his best to teach me, but I guess I’m still a little rough around the edges.”

“Your husband isn’t here,” Leonardo says, his eyes going to my wedding ring, “or you’d be in the base with the rest of us. Well, not me, not now, but you know…”

“No,” I say abruptly. “He died.” I watch his face as Leonardo carefully wipes his lips with a napkin.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.” It comes out before I can stop it, but I soften it with a wry smile.

I wipe my palms on my skirts beneath the table and fight the tremble in my chest. “That is—we were married only a few weeks. I miss him, but not the way you must miss your wife. Aurelio was… Well, he didn’t appreciate learning, especially in ladies.

So while I am actually sorry he’s gone—I’m not a total monster—his death has brought me here.

And I like it here. New company, and learning. ”

“Cheers to that, then,” Leonardo says, his voice full of false bravado. I can tell he wants to ask more questions, but politeness wins. He picks up his wine and clinks the glass against my water.

He finishes his meal with a flourish then, wiping the bowl with his bread.

The ghost of his wife is gone from the table now, and I’m glad.

Grieving is my bread and butter, but Leonardo is such a soft, gentle person, I don’t like the shadow it casts over him.

I wonder if I have the same shadow—if it’s the shadow that all women wear until their hair grows back and they forget the dryness of Silence in their throats.

I look down at my hands, the same hands that held fast and unwavering for thirteen days; they’re still slick and shaking after talking about Aurelio.

The glint of my wedding band reminds me, tonight, of him more than it does my father.

I should take it off; I’d willingly slough off every memory of my husband, burn them all, if I didn’t think being visibly unmarried would gain me more attention here than I already receive.

No, I don’t think my shadow is the same as those of other widows after all.

“Speaking of the campus”—I change the subject, pushing my bowl away—“do you know anything about the walled garden to the east? I found it when I was out stretching my legs.” And I visited it again last night when I couldn’t sleep , but I don’t tell him that part.

I’m already kicking myself for not asking Petaccia about it during our tutorial—but Leonardo is my next best option until next week.

“I figure it must be part of the university, but I can’t find any information on it. ”

“To the east?” Leonardo clears his throat. His eyebrows furrow slightly, a ghost flitting across his face. “Hmm, no. I’m not sure. I can do some research for you, though, if you’d like?”

When I meet his gaze, his brows are smooth again, his expression elastic—almost as if I imagined it.