E lder answered her question. “Yago, my brother. He of the schemes and laments and displeasures and personal injuries unwitnessed by others.”

“It’s your son, Duke Yago,” I told Nonna Ursula.

“He comes late and will leave soon,” she said.

Elder continued, “He brings with him his wife, Lugrezia, who in her dappled girlhood cast her net toward me, and when I loved Eleanor, turned her craft toward Yago and caught the fool. Her sour face was always enough to curdle fresh milk, and the years have set that fateful resentment in sneers that can never be erased.”

“He brings with him Duchess Lugrezia, his wife,” I said to Nonna Ursula.

She grimaced. “The woman’s a mumble-news. She speaks softly and so works to leave me isolated among the company.”

Thus we were not surprised when Yago and Lugrezia appeared in the doorway and posed, like two bolts of dark lightning sent to obliterate the candles and plunge us into dark.

Conversation hushed, and Elder said, “Ever they have affected a jolly revelry like two turds tossed in the punch bowl.”

I didn’t laugh—but it was a close thing. Clearly, Cal got his turn of phrase from his father.

When Cal noticed them, he rose slowly to his feet and smiled a grin so faulty, I thanked the Madonna that he’d not felt obliged to create that terrible contortion for me.

“Welcome, my noble uncle and gracious aunt. Come sit at the table with this merry company and celebrate my blessed betrothal to Lady Rosaline of the house of Montague.” He gestured toward me, his broad hand a graceful, gracious sweep.

I stood and curtsied. I didn’t remember previously meeting the couple; yet from the expressions on their sour lemon faces, one would have thought Cal had introduced them to a voluptuary.

Duke Yago resembled Elder in his features and form, but even as a ghost, Elder appeared more robust, for Yago’s sallow complexion, crumpled chest, and skinny shoulders gave him the appearance of a soon-likely visit to the boneyard’s stone slab.

Duchess Lugrezia stood taller than her husband, an impressive woman, clearly once so beautiful she had put the stars to shame; and now to clutch at youth, she wore white hair painted yellow, wild eyebrows penciled brown, and narrow lips over-stained with red.

The couple dressed alike in magnificent well-padded scarlet velvets and fur-trimmed sleeves—people of consequence not in themselves, but because their clothes declared them to be.

In unison, they strode forward, clearly intending that Yago take his seat at the foot of the table, but Cal gestured them forward.

“We sit close so Nonna Ursula can hear our conversations.”

They surveyed the table, looking for the most prominent seats among people they clearly considered beneath them.

Papà rose. “Please take my seat. You’ll wish to greet your mother with affection and respect.”

Yago seemed only now to notice Nonna Ursula. He shuffled over, kissed her cheek, murmured, “Madam Mother, I rejoice to see you.”

For all that his voice was pitched low, she heard him, for she loudly answered, “You rejoice too seldom, Yago. I have only one son left on this earth and he arrives with a tardy gait.”

Duke Yago grimaced in contemptuous and unhidden disdain.

I wanted to warn him of Nonna Ursula’s not-so-impaired vision, but would never deliberately remove the elderly woman’s camouflage, although I saw that his contempt pained her.

The tension at the table thickened, for my kind family had welcomed Nonna Ursula to their hearts, and Cal, for all his dire warnings, obviously loved his grandmother.

Yago remained oblivious, or perhaps he cared nothing for family, friends, and a merry company.

He groaned like a swaybacked horse as he lowered himself into my father’s seat next to Nonna Ursula.

Cal directed Lugrezia to Cesario’s empty chair across the table, next to Mamma, and ordered they both be given plates and foods to sate their hunger.

Duchess Lugrezia pulled the entire stuffed and refeathered peacock toward her, and with her eating knife, she began the process of removing a joint.

Good luck to her. None of the rest of us had been able to dismember the tough old bird.

Papà walked around to stand behind Mamma, to hold her shoulders and give support, and, I thought, to stand above Duke Yago in height and placement at the table. It was a gesture quite unlike Papà, and made me realize he had no fondness for the man and his inflated consequence.

Without waiting on wine or greetings or to discover the tenor and direction of the conversation, Duke Yago said, “Nephew, did you know the flagellants have returned to Verona?”

Periodically the flagellants, men and women filthy, unhoused, and with their faces covered and their backs bared, arrived in a pack to wander the streets, mortifying their flesh with whips in penance for their sins.

And our sins, too, if one was to believe their accounts.

They called themselves disciplinati, and in return they required bread and wine, blankets and shoes.

“I’d heard that report, Uncle.” Cal settled into his chair at the head of the table. “Indeed, as podestà, I had to allow them to cross through the city gate, direct them to the arena where they can sleep, and tell them which routes to follow through the city.”

Duke Yago appeared not to note the reminder of Cal’s position. “What do you intend to do? Wherever go the flagellants, so goes trouble.”

That was true. Some citizens welcomed them and the holy frenzy they brought with them. Others feared them, and justly, for they had no stake in Verona’s peace or property, and yes, trouble followed them like the stench of dried black blood.

“I would ban them, but such a move puts them on the roads around the city, blocking merchants and visitors. I prefer to keep them here, under my eye, regulated and hemmed in by Verona’s laws.”

“They cover their faces to hide their lawlessness.”

“I won’t allow such behavior.”

“They won’t listen to you!” Duke Yago used his own whip of scorn.

“Then they’ll visit our dungeons and scatter like autumn leaves under the wind of my displeasure.” Indeed, the icy breath of Cal’s assurance made me shiver; he would not allow the disciplinati to defy him, or his uncle to chide him.

Duchess Lugrezia smiled so charmingly, I wanted to raise a shield to protect us all, and in a voice as welcoming and cordial as a courtesan’s, she said, “Come, Yago, these many years since your wounding, Callie has done well without your avuncular advice, or at least well enough”—she put down her knife—“if one discounts the food at the palace.” Her gaze swooped in on me.

“I hope, my dear Rosaline, your advent will improve matters.”

Perhaps this will amaze you, gentle reader, but if my temper abruptly gains the upper hand over my tact . . . tact will lose. “I promise, Duchess Lugrezia—”

I must have had that tone in my voice, for Mamma shook her head at me.

“—that when I’m mistress of the palace, my improvements will start with a value-enhanced guest list.” I smiled with at least as much charm as she had.

Mamma dropped her head into her hand.

Lugrezia nodded with approval. “That is exactly what I hoped you would say, dear Rosaline. Because our nephew brings to table plebeians who would be better served a meal on the paving stones of the street, and when reproached, he talks about his duty to Verona’s citizens.

” She flapped a hand at Cal, and that warm voice echoed of amused affection.

“He will be, I anticipate, guided by you in household matters at least.” She picked up her knife and began poking at the peacock again.

I couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t comprehended my insult.

She remained untouched by my scorn. I looked around the table, and saw equally stunned expressions to match the one I wore, and some warm commiserations from those who had encountered Duchess Lugrezia before.

In fact, Papà grinned at me, Mamma still frowned a reprimand, and Cal wore such a smooth expression I knew he was hiding something, probably a loud bark of laughter. At me.

Damn it, I was tired of getting it wrong every damned time.

“Did I neglect to mention that Lugrezia has the shell-covered hide of a sea cow?” Elder asked.

“You did so neglect,” I answered shortly.

“Both of them do, and neither has been blessed with humor. Look not for jesting in any future dealings.”

“Does she talk to herself?” Duke Yago was staring at me. “Sign of madness, you know.”

I found myself releasing my breath. The whole evening had been one simple-wittedness after another, and this was no worse than the rest.

Mayhap Nonna Ursula and I thought alike, or mayhap she heard my thoughts the way she heard Elder’s words, for she sat with chin firm, eyes bright, hands caressing the rough knob at the top of her cane.

She leaned close and said, “Rosie, you have given me a marvelous idea. We’ve had enough of the meal and the company, and I can offer an excuse of fatigue and you can offer to help me to my fainting couch.

Come, let’s find a private place where we can talk with no one overhearing. ”