(Florence, near the Mercato Vecchio, the studiolo of Mariam Bellini, formerly Meryem of the East โ
The florins feel different in her hands now. Heavier, perhaps, or perhaps it is only that she counts them for herself now, not for Giuseppe's fumbling fingers and his merchant's dreams that never extended beyond the next shipment of wool. Two years since she buried himโa fever, she told the neighbors, sudden and mercifulโand still she catches herself listening for his wheeze in the morning silence.
She does not miss him, or rather, she misses him but only in part. She arranges the coins in neat stacks across the oak table. What she misses is the simplicity of pretending to be only what she appeared: a merchant's wife from the eastern lands, grateful for Florentine protection, content to mind the household accounts. But contentment, she has learned, is a luxury the immortal cannot afford. Giuseppe's protection died with him, and Florence does not coddle foreign widows, no matter how well they count. And where she rose was the backwoods of the world. She could not stay there.
The banking houses rise around her like cathedrals of gold. The Medici name echoes in every transaction, Lorenzo's influence threading through the city like silk through a loom. She watches the flow of money as other women watch the flow of the Arnoโboth currents that shape the landscape, both dangerous when they change course.
He is made of sweat and ambition. He sits opposite her, the wool of his tunic too heavy for the season, a dark spot of damp spreading between his shoulder blades. His name is Piero Vettori, a man from a good family but not the main branch, a man whose desire has outstripped his means. She knows his type. She collects them. They are the bricks from which she builds her walls. That is why he is here.
She feels the city pressing at the window, a low thrum of life: the rumble of cart wheels on stone, the distant shouts from the Ponte Vecchio, the smell of woodsmoke and roasting meat. All of it is life, teeming and fragile. A world of flesh. In here, it is different.
He has been speaking for some time, the words gusting around the small, still room, full of promises about Flemish wool and the exchange rates in Bruges. She lets them blow past her, listening instead to the frantic, shallow pace of his breathing. A world of ink, she finds, is more durable than the world of flesh. That is why he is here. She is the lender for ventures deemed too bold, or too foolish, by the established houses.
She studies the deed he has placed on her desk, not the man himself. A small vineyard in the hills towards Fiesole. The parchment is good, the ink dark, the seal of his minor house intact. She already knows its worth to the florin, having had it valued last week when she first heard the whispers of his need. The land itself is secondary. The true collateral is his desperation. The true asset is the debt, a hook she can set in the flesh of the Vettori name. It is a small hook, but she has learned that great beasts can be turned by small, well-placed things.
He finally falls silent, his pitch made. The quiet he leaves behind is heavy, expectant. She lets it work on him, an acid that eats at a man's certainty. ) You understand the penalty for default, Signore Vettori? It is not merely the collateral. It is the interest on the interest, compounded weekly.
( He swallows, a dry, clicking sound in his throat. ) Of course, Signora. But there will be no default. This venture isโ
( She raises an eyebrow. She does not need his reassurances; they have no value on a ledger. ) The House of Medici does not like their factors in Bruges to be challenged. They have long arms. They can beโฆ disruptive to the business of smaller men. ( It is a test, and he flinches. A flicker of his eyes, a tightening of the jaw. Good. Fear is a reliable motivator. ) The Medici are not the only power in Florence, Signora.
( What they do not expect is how carefully she listens. How she catalogs their fears, their ambitions, their whispered complaints about the Medici grip on trade. Information, she has discovered, compounds like interest. And unlike Giuseppe's wool, it never spoils in storage. No, she thinks, her gaze resting on the contract, a spidery web waiting for its fly. They are not. That is the entire point.) Sign the document, Signore. Your first payment is due in three months' time. To the day.
( His hand trembles as he signs. He pushes the parchment back toward her, the ink glistening, and then he is gone, his footsteps fading down the hall. For a moment, she has her perfect silence again, the quiet of a transaction completed, a new hook set. Then it is broken. The bell above her door chimes again before the merchant can answer. Someone else approachesโtheir footsteps measured, purposeful. Not her maid, Caterina, but a manโs. Not the shuffle of another desperate borrower, but the stride of someone who knows precisely what they seek. Not the sound of a merchant asking for a loan, nor a debtor begging for time. It is the sound of someone who expects to be heard. People do not simply arrive at her door. This is a different kind of business. )
( a fortnight has passed. twelve days, in actuality, and his mind has withered to an empty husk, dried and hollow, like the gourd that hangs above him. the cogs of his brain creak slowly and wearily, like the water wheel opposite the wall he lounges against. he waits for something to appear on the hazy horizon. a person or a sign to free him from the ennui, but he doesn't know what to look for. not knowing the path ahead โ this cluelessness, listlessness, and helplessness are as stifling as the oppressive heat, an additional weight to his mind that makes it impossible to think.
spring has been warmer than usual with little rain for relief. the arno river is low, while the three minor rivers are dry or nearly dry. the sun bakes the florentine countryside. this heat makes it difficult to dredge up the motivation to move or even think.
sweat pops on the back of his neck, a slight breeze carrying his name, but no relief. someone is calling his name. it's signore fallaci, master of the house, and the irritation in his voice is as searing and uncompromising as the sun beating down on them. like the temperature, emotions are running high.
with considerable effort and a heavy sigh, he pushes himself off the wall. the dry grass crunches beneath his feet as he drags himself across the yard to the master of the house. once he arrives, the old man begins to yell at him for a loosely tied knot. he says, "old man", but he must be hardly older than forty; but years of hard fighting and even harder living have aged him. the finger he points in his apathetic face is gnarled and crooked like the olive trees that dot his property, modestly sized and prosperous for someone not connected to any of the ruling families in florence.
but signore fallaci's luck has run out. debts mount while his coffers ring like a funeral bell. perhaps that's why he allows the old man to scream and strike the rope against his legs. he knows when a corpse pretends to be human.
in the harsh sunlight, his blue eyes squint and flicker catch onto the signore's wife, signora fallaci, staring from the kitchen window, and her eyes dark with lust for him. perhaps her disinterest in her husband and obvious attraction to the young farmhand was another iron in the signore growing hatred and frustration. but the young farmhand says nothing, giving neither of them the reaction they desire. their hospitality is a kindness, so he avoids provoking them or being alone with signora. his heart longs elsewhere.
after a few minutes, the flames of the signore's anger die out, but they do not in his wife's eyes, so the young farmhand escapes to the stable to clean out the stalls. resolution strengthens his mind, sharpening it enough in the warm, musty air to form a plan. he could stay here a hundred years. the rains will come, the crops will grow, the walls of the house will fall, but he will remain as he is.
he has to do something, even if it yields nothing because something is better than nothing. something is movement. progress that he can grasp onto. growth that will lessen the weight and make it easier to breathe. something is something, and he can work with that.
night falls, and the heat slackens but only just. a silent, tense dinner passes. an argument between the husband and wife continues through terse glares and loud huffs, but the young farmhand neither notices nor cares. his mind is elsewhere as he carefully picks at the meal of bread, hard cheese, and salted meat. barely an hour later, and the candles are snuffed out. the soft hum of the crickets lulls the home's occupants to sleep. except for one.
pressing his ear to the thin, stone walls, he waits until he hears the slow, regular breathing of the signore and signora, and then he sneaks out from his small room, past theirs, and through the kitchen. the door barely creaks as he closes it behind him. they were kind to him when they didn't need to be. he was wearing a bedsheet in a way that resembled a toga when signore fallaci first stumbled upon him near his vineyard. without question or hesitation, the old man invited him in, clothed him, and fed him. he didn't have to show such kindness, but he did. which is why the young farmhand steals only a donkey when he flees into the night.
florence is less than ten miles away, and that's where he decides something might be. or, if not, it's where he'll make something and bend it to his will. but this is the medici's city, so his ambition and determination will not be seen as out of place.
travel lasts until dawn, when streaks of red and yellow creep over the surrounding hills. but he waits until the shops open and people fill the streets to enter the city. he wanders around the stone pavement for a while before selling the donkey to a passing farmer for a few florins. the donkey is old and tired, and he is hungry and tired. but rest is a gift bestowed to those who have completed their work, so he buys a loaf of bread and continues wandering. in the shadow of the medici and total freedom guiding his actions, the heat is a little more bearable.
finally, he sees the sign for a moneylender and, for reasons he can't explain, goes in. the store is empty, and that's perfect because there won't be any interruptions. the stone floor shines beneath his feet as he strides down the hall and to the desk, staffed by a dark-haired woman. he doesn't know her name โ he didn't even bother to read the moneylender's name before entering โ but that's not important. he places a hand on the desk, his hip leaning against the edge. his smile is restrained and modest, but it bursts with the unbridled joy and opportunity of a new day. he is a young and beamish bride on her wedding day. his voice is as clear and melodic as the bell above the door that heralded his arrival. )
I would like one thousand florins, please, Signora.
( The bellโs note has not yet died when the number hits her. It lands in the room like a thrown stone.
One thousand florins. The careful composure she has built these past two years crumbles in an instant. It is an offense in two directions at once: to arithmetic, and to courtesy.
She feels it rise in her like heat off paving, a flare that is anger and something like fear, a reflex learned in places where the person who asks loudly is the person who means to take. Her hand jerks, sending the quill skittering across the ledger, leaving a trail of black ink that spreads like spilled wine across the page. The numbers she has been so carefully recordingโsmall loans, modest interest, the patient accumulation of powerโsuddenly seem laughable, childish.
She is on her feet before she knows it.
She laughsโone cut of sound, the edge of a blade. The words escape before she can stop them, pitched too high, too sharp. ) No! Are you mad? One thousandโ( She catches herself, forces her voice lower, but it still trembles with shock. ) Signore, I fear the heat has addled your wits. That is not a sum one requests of a moneylender, sir. That is a sum one requests of princes.
( The laughter is wrong. It is too young, too naked. She hears it in the room and is ashamed of it, instantly. Anger runs after her shame, quick-footed. Who walks in here with a strangerโs voice and asks to scoop out the heart of her coffer? One thousandโmore than many houses could bear at a shout. She feels the insult as if someone has stepped on her neck.
She puts her hand to the table. It is smooth with use. The wood presses back against her palm. She sits. She drags the ledger nearer. The quill scratches once where the point bit the paper. She breathes. The world does not contract. It reveals itself as a series of steps.
She says, with effort. ) Sit.
( He does or he does not; she does not choose to see. She keeps her attention on the page, the safety of ruled lines. The heat lifts off the stone floor in small invisible waves. For a breathโno, threeโshe is not here. She is standing in the ruins of her village, smoke thick in her throat, the smell of burning thatch and something worse beneath it. The air in her mouth is seared. The smell changes. Dry straw, and then the other smell that comes after straw, the sweet rot of it when soaked in oil and lit.
The silence that is not silence, when everyone is holding their breath for the crack of the next beam. Ash on her tongue. A womanโs criesโsomebody elseโs motherโturn to water and run down the inside of her skull. Light stutters; she sees it through the wide door of a house that is hers and not hers, and then sun and smoke twist together and she is back, one hand still on the table, steadying herself against nothing.
The memory crashes over her like a waveโher father's voice, steady even as the world ended: Count carefully, Meryem. Numbers do not lie, even when everything else does. But he had never prepared her for this, for requests so audacious they bordered on mockery.
She speaks into the ledger, because numbers are true. ) You do not ask for one thousand here. Not as your first word. Not without paper, names, a seal. Not to a woman the city declines to shelter. ( The hot room listens. The scraped breath of a distant cart wheel trembles along the shutters and stops.
She grips the edge of the desk, knuckles white beneath her skin. The wood is solid, real, anchoring her to this moment, this room, this carefully constructed life. Not the smoke. Not the screaming. Not the creature that fed on years and left only ash.
She sets her voice in order. ) No one receives that from me at a first sight. That is not how I keep my door open.
(She turns a page. There is a comfort in the rasp of it. The weight returns to her body. She can think. She will put the anger back in its jar.
She says, more evenly. ) If you came for coin, begin where such things begin. Speak of what you will pledge, who will stand surety, how you will meet the first due. ( She draws a line, neat, across the page. ) Hear me, and choose if you will stand in my book. ( She counts on her fingers, each point a rung she can climb out of her own stupidity. That first laugh. She will not do that again.
She does not look up. She does not note shoes or hands or the way a man holds himself to see whether he lies. She refuses that easy reading. It is a trick she knows how to do and will not do today. The heat makes everything look like a mirage. All she will attend to are the facts she can write down.
Her voice finds its proper register, cool and measured. ) What do you offer as surety, sir? What trade brings you to my door with such... confidence? The great banking houses require substantial collateral for loans of any size. I am not Cosimo's heir, but neither am I a charity for the desperate.
( She presses the quill to the margin to ground herself, a dark dot against the pale. The mention of the Medici is calculated, a reminder of the powers that rule this city, the careful hierarchies she must navigate as a foreign widow with no family name to shield her. The number still pulses in her head: one thousand. The kind of figure that makes the great houses look up from their own accounts and say, Who is she, and what is she doing. The kind of figure that invites attention she has not paid for and cannot afford. The name that is not a name, the roof that is only a name, will not protect her. Every transaction is a risk, every client a test of the reputation she has built florin by florin. The city keeps its long fingers on the pulse of money; at a sum like that, you can feel them flex.
She draws breath, reaching for control, for the voice she uses with merchants and debtors. ) Perhapsโperhaps we might discuss something more... practical. Fifty florins, with proper security. A hundred, if you possess land or goods of value.
( Even as she speaks, she knows she is being generous beyond reason. Fifty florins would buy a man a horse, tools, a start in trade. A hundred could purchase a small shop, a modest vineyard. But there is something in his manner that makes her pause, something that reminds her of the borderlands where her father taught her that the most impossible requests sometimes hid the most profitable truths.
It is a poor-manโs ladder, a thing she has watched built and burned many times. She does not think of him climbing it. She thinks of herself, once, of a hand out and a hand refused, of the sound a rope makes when it gives. That sound is in this dry summer too. She remembers her own desperation, the weight of Giuseppe's hands on her shoulders as he introduced her to his merchant friends, the way she had to smile and nod and pretend gratitude for protection that felt like chains. The memory steadies her, reminds her why she sits on this side of the desk now, why she holds the purse strings instead of begging for them.
She is, she reminds herself, no longer a girl with soot in her hair and blood on her hands. She knows hunger and she knows debt as well as bread. She has stood in doorways and watched men decide whether she was a poor woman or a liar. It never helped to be either. Remember this, she tells herself. Do not be the door that slammed in your face. But neither be the fool who took a stranger into your house and set him at your coffer. The drought has made everyone desperate, and desperation, properly managed, can be the most profitable commodity of all.
She breathes. The hot air tastes of old plaster. Her skin is damp under her sleeve. She thinks of the river; the news that morning had said men could walk where last year they poled. She thinks of grain in the barns, and the price of oil already creeping like water up a wall. She thinks of the ways that a man could be driven to the door of a woman like her, no patron over her, no husband between. Heat takes a city to the edge of its temper. The poor learn to count by hunger.
She continues, because if she stops now, the anger will come back and speak in her mouth. ) What trade supports such... ambition? I am not a charitable house, and I am not impressed by confidence alone. The rate would be steepโtwo parts in ten, compounded monthly.
( The interest rate hangs between them like a challenge. It is usurious, deliberately so, the kind of terms that would make even desperate men reconsider. But she needs to regain control of this conversation, to remind both of them who holds the power here. She is Mariam Bellini, widow and moneylender, not some village girl to be dazzled by bold words and easy smiles. She says, declining to name the house: ) There are places in this city that lend thousands to men they do not know. They have floors for that business, and men with lists. Their reach is long, and they enjoy it. If it is only the large number you want, go there. If you want terms you can actually keep, begin at the scale you can lift.
( She waits. There is nothing in waiting that she has not practiced. She is old in that art already, and she despises that she is. She does not move the bell. She does not call for anyone. A person who expects to be heard should be offered the courtesy of hearing the answer. But she will not be dragged to the level where numbers are wishes spoken in heat.
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no subject
The florins feel different in her hands now. Heavier, perhaps, or perhaps it is only that she counts them for herself now, not for Giuseppe's fumbling fingers and his merchant's dreams that never extended beyond the next shipment of wool. Two years since she buried himโa fever, she told the neighbors, sudden and mercifulโand still she catches herself listening for his wheeze in the morning silence.
She does not miss him, or rather, she misses him but only in part. She arranges the coins in neat stacks across the oak table. What she misses is the simplicity of pretending to be only what she appeared: a merchant's wife from the eastern lands, grateful for Florentine protection, content to mind the household accounts. But contentment, she has learned, is a luxury the immortal cannot afford. Giuseppe's protection died with him, and Florence does not coddle foreign widows, no matter how well they count. And where she rose was the backwoods of the world. She could not stay there.
The banking houses rise around her like cathedrals of gold. The Medici name echoes in every transaction, Lorenzo's influence threading through the city like silk through a loom. She watches the flow of money as other women watch the flow of the Arnoโboth currents that shape the landscape, both dangerous when they change course.
He is made of sweat and ambition. He sits opposite her, the wool of his tunic too heavy for the season, a dark spot of damp spreading between his shoulder blades. His name is Piero Vettori, a man from a good family but not the main branch, a man whose desire has outstripped his means. She knows his type. She collects them. They are the bricks from which she builds her walls. That is why he is here.
She feels the city pressing at the window, a low thrum of life: the rumble of cart wheels on stone, the distant shouts from the Ponte Vecchio, the smell of woodsmoke and roasting meat. All of it is life, teeming and fragile. A world of flesh. In here, it is different.
He has been speaking for some time, the words gusting around the small, still room, full of promises about Flemish wool and the exchange rates in Bruges. She lets them blow past her, listening instead to the frantic, shallow pace of his breathing. A world of ink, she finds, is more durable than the world of flesh. That is why he is here. She is the lender for ventures deemed too bold, or too foolish, by the established houses.
She studies the deed he has placed on her desk, not the man himself. A small vineyard in the hills towards Fiesole. The parchment is good, the ink dark, the seal of his minor house intact. She already knows its worth to the florin, having had it valued last week when she first heard the whispers of his need. The land itself is secondary. The true collateral is his desperation. The true asset is the debt, a hook she can set in the flesh of the Vettori name. It is a small hook, but she has learned that great beasts can be turned by small, well-placed things.
He finally falls silent, his pitch made. The quiet he leaves behind is heavy, expectant. She lets it work on him, an acid that eats at a man's certainty. ) You understand the penalty for default, Signore Vettori? It is not merely the collateral. It is the interest on the interest, compounded weekly.
( He swallows, a dry, clicking sound in his throat. ) Of course, Signora. But there will be no default. This venture isโ
( She raises an eyebrow. She does not need his reassurances; they have no value on a ledger. ) The House of Medici does not like their factors in Bruges to be challenged. They have long arms. They can beโฆ disruptive to the business of smaller men. ( It is a test, and he flinches. A flicker of his eyes, a tightening of the jaw. Good. Fear is a reliable motivator. ) The Medici are not the only power in Florence, Signora.
( What they do not expect is how carefully she listens. How she catalogs their fears, their ambitions, their whispered complaints about the Medici grip on trade. Information, she has discovered, compounds like interest. And unlike Giuseppe's wool, it never spoils in storage. No, she thinks, her gaze resting on the contract, a spidery web waiting for its fly. They are not. That is the entire point.) Sign the document, Signore. Your first payment is due in three months' time. To the day.
( His hand trembles as he signs. He pushes the parchment back toward her, the ink glistening, and then he is gone, his footsteps fading down the hall. For a moment, she has her perfect silence again, the quiet of a transaction completed, a new hook set. Then it is broken. The bell above her door chimes again before the merchant can answer. Someone else approachesโtheir footsteps measured, purposeful. Not her maid, Caterina, but a manโs. Not the shuffle of another desperate borrower, but the stride of someone who knows precisely what they seek. Not the sound of a merchant asking for a loan, nor a debtor begging for time. It is the sound of someone who expects to be heard. People do not simply arrive at her door. This is a different kind of business. )
no subject
spring has been warmer than usual with little rain for relief. the arno river is low, while the three minor rivers are dry or nearly dry. the sun bakes the florentine countryside. this heat makes it difficult to dredge up the motivation to move or even think.
sweat pops on the back of his neck, a slight breeze carrying his name, but no relief. someone is calling his name. it's signore fallaci, master of the house, and the irritation in his voice is as searing and uncompromising as the sun beating down on them. like the temperature, emotions are running high.
with considerable effort and a heavy sigh, he pushes himself off the wall. the dry grass crunches beneath his feet as he drags himself across the yard to the master of the house. once he arrives, the old man begins to yell at him for a loosely tied knot. he says, "old man", but he must be hardly older than forty; but years of hard fighting and even harder living have aged him. the finger he points in his apathetic face is gnarled and crooked like the olive trees that dot his property, modestly sized and prosperous for someone not connected to any of the ruling families in florence.
but signore fallaci's luck has run out. debts mount while his coffers ring like a funeral bell. perhaps that's why he allows the old man to scream and strike the rope against his legs. he knows when a corpse pretends to be human.
in the harsh sunlight, his blue eyes squint and flicker catch onto the signore's wife, signora fallaci, staring from the kitchen window, and her eyes dark with lust for him. perhaps her disinterest in her husband and obvious attraction to the young farmhand was another iron in the signore growing hatred and frustration. but the young farmhand says nothing, giving neither of them the reaction they desire. their hospitality is a kindness, so he avoids provoking them or being alone with signora. his heart longs elsewhere.
after a few minutes, the flames of the signore's anger die out, but they do not in his wife's eyes, so the young farmhand escapes to the stable to clean out the stalls. resolution strengthens his mind, sharpening it enough in the warm, musty air to form a plan. he could stay here a hundred years. the rains will come, the crops will grow, the walls of the house will fall, but he will remain as he is.
he has to do something, even if it yields nothing because something is better than nothing. something is movement. progress that he can grasp onto. growth that will lessen the weight and make it easier to breathe. something is something, and he can work with that.
night falls, and the heat slackens but only just. a silent, tense dinner passes. an argument between the husband and wife continues through terse glares and loud huffs, but the young farmhand neither notices nor cares. his mind is elsewhere as he carefully picks at the meal of bread, hard cheese, and salted meat. barely an hour later, and the candles are snuffed out. the soft hum of the crickets lulls the home's occupants to sleep. except for one.
pressing his ear to the thin, stone walls, he waits until he hears the slow, regular breathing of the signore and signora, and then he sneaks out from his small room, past theirs, and through the kitchen. the door barely creaks as he closes it behind him. they were kind to him when they didn't need to be. he was wearing a bedsheet in a way that resembled a toga when signore fallaci first stumbled upon him near his vineyard. without question or hesitation, the old man invited him in, clothed him, and fed him. he didn't have to show such kindness, but he did. which is why the young farmhand steals only a donkey when he flees into the night.
florence is less than ten miles away, and that's where he decides something might be. or, if not, it's where he'll make something and bend it to his will. but this is the medici's city, so his ambition and determination will not be seen as out of place.
travel lasts until dawn, when streaks of red and yellow creep over the surrounding hills. but he waits until the shops open and people fill the streets to enter the city. he wanders around the stone pavement for a while before selling the donkey to a passing farmer for a few florins. the donkey is old and tired, and he is hungry and tired. but rest is a gift bestowed to those who have completed their work, so he buys a loaf of bread and continues wandering. in the shadow of the medici and total freedom guiding his actions, the heat is a little more bearable.
finally, he sees the sign for a moneylender and, for reasons he can't explain, goes in. the store is empty, and that's perfect because there won't be any interruptions. the stone floor shines beneath his feet as he strides down the hall and to the desk, staffed by a dark-haired woman. he doesn't know her name โ he didn't even bother to read the moneylender's name before entering โ but that's not important. he places a hand on the desk, his hip leaning against the edge. his smile is restrained and modest, but it bursts with the unbridled joy and opportunity of a new day. he is a young and beamish bride on her wedding day. his voice is as clear and melodic as the bell above the door that heralded his arrival. )
I would like one thousand florins, please, Signora.
no subject
One thousand florins. The careful composure she has built these past two years crumbles in an instant. It is an offense in two directions at once: to arithmetic, and to courtesy.
She feels it rise in her like heat off paving, a flare that is anger and something like fear, a reflex learned in places where the person who asks loudly is the person who means to take. Her hand jerks, sending the quill skittering across the ledger, leaving a trail of black ink that spreads like spilled wine across the page. The numbers she has been so carefully recordingโsmall loans, modest interest, the patient accumulation of powerโsuddenly seem laughable, childish.
She is on her feet before she knows it.
She laughsโone cut of sound, the edge of a blade. The words escape before she can stop them, pitched too high, too sharp. ) No! Are you mad? One thousandโ( She catches herself, forces her voice lower, but it still trembles with shock. ) Signore, I fear the heat has addled your wits. That is not a sum one requests of a moneylender, sir. That is a sum one requests of princes.
( The laughter is wrong. It is too young, too naked. She hears it in the room and is ashamed of it, instantly. Anger runs after her shame, quick-footed. Who walks in here with a strangerโs voice and asks to scoop out the heart of her coffer? One thousandโmore than many houses could bear at a shout. She feels the insult as if someone has stepped on her neck.
She puts her hand to the table. It is smooth with use. The wood presses back against her palm. She sits. She drags the ledger nearer. The quill scratches once where the point bit the paper. She breathes. The world does not contract. It reveals itself as a series of steps.
She says, with effort. ) Sit.
( He does or he does not; she does not choose to see. She keeps her attention on the page, the safety of ruled lines. The heat lifts off the stone floor in small invisible waves. For a breathโno, threeโshe is not here. She is standing in the ruins of her village, smoke thick in her throat, the smell of burning thatch and something worse beneath it. The air in her mouth is seared. The smell changes. Dry straw, and then the other smell that comes after straw, the sweet rot of it when soaked in oil and lit.
The silence that is not silence, when everyone is holding their breath for the crack of the next beam. Ash on her tongue. A womanโs criesโsomebody elseโs motherโturn to water and run down the inside of her skull. Light stutters; she sees it through the wide door of a house that is hers and not hers, and then sun and smoke twist together and she is back, one hand still on the table, steadying herself against nothing.
The memory crashes over her like a waveโher father's voice, steady even as the world ended: Count carefully, Meryem. Numbers do not lie, even when everything else does. But he had never prepared her for this, for requests so audacious they bordered on mockery.
She speaks into the ledger, because numbers are true. ) You do not ask for one thousand here. Not as your first word. Not without paper, names, a seal. Not to a woman the city declines to shelter. ( The hot room listens. The scraped breath of a distant cart wheel trembles along the shutters and stops.
She grips the edge of the desk, knuckles white beneath her skin. The wood is solid, real, anchoring her to this moment, this room, this carefully constructed life. Not the smoke. Not the screaming. Not the creature that fed on years and left only ash.
She sets her voice in order. ) No one receives that from me at a first sight. That is not how I keep my door open.
(She turns a page. There is a comfort in the rasp of it. The weight returns to her body. She can think. She will put the anger back in its jar.
She says, more evenly. ) If you came for coin, begin where such things begin. Speak of what you will pledge, who will stand surety, how you will meet the first due. ( She draws a line, neat, across the page. ) Hear me, and choose if you will stand in my book. ( She counts on her fingers, each point a rung she can climb out of her own stupidity. That first laugh. She will not do that again.
She does not look up. She does not note shoes or hands or the way a man holds himself to see whether he lies. She refuses that easy reading. It is a trick she knows how to do and will not do today. The heat makes everything look like a mirage. All she will attend to are the facts she can write down.
Her voice finds its proper register, cool and measured. ) What do you offer as surety, sir? What trade brings you to my door with such... confidence? The great banking houses require substantial collateral for loans of any size. I am not Cosimo's heir, but neither am I a charity for the desperate.
( She presses the quill to the margin to ground herself, a dark dot against the pale. The mention of the Medici is calculated, a reminder of the powers that rule this city, the careful hierarchies she must navigate as a foreign widow with no family name to shield her. The number still pulses in her head: one thousand. The kind of figure that makes the great houses look up from their own accounts and say, Who is she, and what is she doing. The kind of figure that invites attention she has not paid for and cannot afford. The name that is not a name, the roof that is only a name, will not protect her. Every transaction is a risk, every client a test of the reputation she has built florin by florin. The city keeps its long fingers on the pulse of money; at a sum like that, you can feel them flex.
She draws breath, reaching for control, for the voice she uses with merchants and debtors. ) Perhapsโperhaps we might discuss something more... practical. Fifty florins, with proper security. A hundred, if you possess land or goods of value.
( Even as she speaks, she knows she is being generous beyond reason. Fifty florins would buy a man a horse, tools, a start in trade. A hundred could purchase a small shop, a modest vineyard. But there is something in his manner that makes her pause, something that reminds her of the borderlands where her father taught her that the most impossible requests sometimes hid the most profitable truths.
It is a poor-manโs ladder, a thing she has watched built and burned many times. She does not think of him climbing it. She thinks of herself, once, of a hand out and a hand refused, of the sound a rope makes when it gives. That sound is in this dry summer too. She remembers her own desperation, the weight of Giuseppe's hands on her shoulders as he introduced her to his merchant friends, the way she had to smile and nod and pretend gratitude for protection that felt like chains. The memory steadies her, reminds her why she sits on this side of the desk now, why she holds the purse strings instead of begging for them.
She is, she reminds herself, no longer a girl with soot in her hair and blood on her hands. She knows hunger and she knows debt as well as bread. She has stood in doorways and watched men decide whether she was a poor woman or a liar. It never helped to be either. Remember this, she tells herself. Do not be the door that slammed in your face. But neither be the fool who took a stranger into your house and set him at your coffer. The drought has made everyone desperate, and desperation, properly managed, can be the most profitable commodity of all.
She breathes. The hot air tastes of old plaster. Her skin is damp under her sleeve. She thinks of the river; the news that morning had said men could walk where last year they poled. She thinks of grain in the barns, and the price of oil already creeping like water up a wall. She thinks of the ways that a man could be driven to the door of a woman like her, no patron over her, no husband between. Heat takes a city to the edge of its temper. The poor learn to count by hunger.
She continues, because if she stops now, the anger will come back and speak in her mouth. ) What trade supports such... ambition? I am not a charitable house, and I am not impressed by confidence alone. The rate would be steepโtwo parts in ten, compounded monthly.
( The interest rate hangs between them like a challenge. It is usurious, deliberately so, the kind of terms that would make even desperate men reconsider. But she needs to regain control of this conversation, to remind both of them who holds the power here. She is Mariam Bellini, widow and moneylender, not some village girl to be dazzled by bold words and easy smiles. She says, declining to name the house: ) There are places in this city that lend thousands to men they do not know. They have floors for that business, and men with lists. Their reach is long, and they enjoy it. If it is only the large number you want, go there. If you want terms you can actually keep, begin at the scale you can lift.
( She waits. There is nothing in waiting that she has not practiced. She is old in that art already, and she despises that she is. She does not move the bell. She does not call for anyone. A person who expects to be heard should be offered the courtesy of hearing the answer. But she will not be dragged to the level where numbers are wishes spoken in heat.
She lifts her pen. Ink gathers at the nib. )