“The festival after the hazelnut harvest,” I said to Fra Teseo, giving Laura a gentle push back to her book. “I’ve already made preparations about the wine, and I believe we should give an outdoor pranzo if the weather permits.” What I would have given for Carmelina to cook for me, but I’d not heard news of her in months. I’d written to Lucrezia, asking if Carmelina could come to serve me, but had no reply. Well, there had been a reply, but it had been page after page about the new gowns Lucrezia was planning to order from the robe makers, and what suitors were already pressing for her hand even though her marriage vows to the Count of Pesaro had yet to be annulled, and how dull the convent was. Not a word about Carmelina. “Now, I know you’ve said a bull-baiting is traditional,” I continued to Fra Teseo, “but my lord Orsino doesn’t like to risk good hunting dogs in a pointless show, and nor do I.” Orsino had said nothing of the kind, but I did try to present my decisions as our decisions. A lord should be respected by his villagers as decisive in his rulings, even if perhaps he wasn’t. “Let us hold a pallone match among the village boys instead. I’ll present prizes for the winning team . . .”

It wasn’t until the last bit of business had been dealt with and the last bit of news discussed (the innkeeper’s daughter was with child; perhaps I could do something for her) that Fra Teseo hesitated and turned pink.

“If you will pardon me,” he murmured almost inaudibly. “It arrived this morning . . .”

Reaching into his sleeve, he passed me a stamped and sealed packet of creamy paper with a very familiar seal.

“Thank you,” I said calmly, and laid the letter unopened on the stone bench beneath the hazelnut tree. “Shall we read the story of Hades and Persephone together, Laura?” I asked, dismissing Fra Teseo, and did not look at the letter again until my husband came striding into the garden a little while later, his eyes lighting at the sight of me as they always did. I allowed mine to light up too, as I saw my lean and handsome Orsino in his riding boots and his fair wind-mussed hair.

“Good hunting today, my little rose,” he said, as he said every day, whether he had bagged a stag or a squirrel or nothing at all. And then his face fell as I placed the letter in his hand.

“For you,” I said, as was proper because a married woman got no letters that her husband did not read, and so I went back to Laura and looked over her shoulder as her lips moved along the lines of Leonello’s clear writing. “Pomegranate, Laura, sound it out. That’s the present Hades gives Persephone . . . ”