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Sometimes he was a scholar—someone who would not object to an educated wife, a wife who drew pictures. Sometimes her house was within city walls, sometimes it was outside,surrounded by orchards and fields. Sometimes children tumbled at her feet, and sometimes it was just the two of them. But always, she had a place of her own. Always, she had someone who belonged to her, and to whom she belonged.
    Always, she was free.
    “Anasurymboriel,” she whispered. It was already easier to say.

Part 2
The Workshop of Women

C HAPTER 5
Santa Marta
    The carriage door sprang wide, admitting an incandescent blast of sunlight. Framed in the opening, Giulia saw an expanse of cobbled street, a slice of red brick wall.
    They had arrived at Santa Marta.
    In the seat opposite, Giulia’s chaperone, Cristina, checked one last time to make sure the Countess’s letter was safe inside its leather case. Cristina was the Countess’s second cousin, and her choice as Giulia’s escort was meant to reflect the Countess’s high position, not to suggest that Giulia herself had any value. The same was true of the nun’s trousseau the Countess had provided—a set of sheets, a pair of sandals,white woolen fabric for the habit Giulia would wear once she took final vows, lengths of linen for undergarments, and a daily prayer book, all packed into a chest of walnut wood, with a metal clasp to hold it closed.
    “Come, Giulia.”
    Cristina gathered her skirts and let the driver assist her to the ground. With an effort of will, Giulia followed.
    It was unseasonably warm for the end of April, but after the carriage’s ovenlike interior the air seemed almost cool. On one side of the street, a long block of houses rose four stories high, with an arcaded walkway running along their fronts. On the other side stood an imposing red brick church, with a double-arched doorway and a huge rose window. The wall Giulia had glimpsed from the carriage began where the church ended, extending along the street as far as she could see, flat and featureless and half as high as the church itself. The wall of Santa Marta.
    She tilted back her head. She could just see that shards of stone were set into its top, jutting like teeth against the cloudless sky.
    I’m not really standing here. Surely this is a dream
.
    The journey from Milan had taken a little over two weeks. The carriage was cramped and hot; dust came through the windows, and water when it rained, and even with cushions, the seats were hard enough to make Giulia’s back ache by the end of each day. But the discomforts faded beside the pleasure of watching the countryside scroll past the windows, ofpicnicking in olive groves, of sleeping each night in a different inn—or, if no inn were near, on bedrolls under the stars. Best of all, for the first time in her life she was able to draw to her heart’s content, for there was nothing else she had to do and no one to tell her not to do it.
    It had been eerie at first to wear the talisman. Giulia couldn’t forget the living spirit trapped inside—a little spark of the heavens, compelled into service on the Earth. But it was so much like an ordinary necklace. As day followed day, Anasurymboriel’s presence ceased to trouble her.
    She’d hoped the spirit’s magic would take hold before they reached Santa Marta, and she did what she could to help—dawdling in the courtyards of inns, persuading Cristina to take meals in public dining rooms rather than privately in their lodgings, braiding her hair into becoming styles and belting her dress extra tight. She was still afraid to pray to God, Whose will she had undertaken to defy; she could not pray to the spirit of the talisman, for that would be blasphemous. Sometimes, though, she couldn’t help resting her hand on the place where the talisman lay beneath her clothes, and longing with all her strength for her heart’s desire.
    And now they were in Padua, and her heart’s desire had not yet arrived. Staring up at