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For Ludovico, this manifested as the overwhelming and immediate urge to impress Ginevra. It was not something he was used to feeling. As the eldest son of an important family, he was used to women trying to impress him, and he was all but immune to the chemically whitened necks and carefully plucked foreheads of his young lady peers. But Ginevra—to his eye she needed no sculpting, no bleaching, or other artifice. He concluded a donation of provisions to the convent would be appropriate. When Ginevra came with Taddea to accept the gift, he remained unnecessarily involved in the transaction. He was polite to Taddea, of course, but upon Ginevra, he heaped an embarrassment of attention. As his father’s servants filled a cart with luxurious foodstuffs, he gazed deeply into Ginevra’s eyes and asked her hundreds of mundane questions, nodding intently at her answers and repeating them aloud as if to commit her words to memory.

“And where is your family?”

“Genoa, sir.”

“Genoa. Yes. And what does your father do?”

“He...he fishes, sir.”

“He fishes. Of course. The sea. It’s there, isn’t it?”

Ginevra, doing her best to ignore the pull of her golden strings, was cautious in her answers. She felt not only the gaze of Ludovico but also of Taddea, whose own eyes were wide with disapproval.

With provisions loaded, Ludovico offered Ginevra a formal goodbye, extending his arm in a low bow. As a result of the gesture, his hand touched hers. Just a tiny bit. The slightest little brush, really. Barely a fingernail. So quick it might not have happened at all. But she knew it had happened. She knew because she felt it from the tips of her toes to the hairs on her head.

The two women walked back to the convent in stiff silence, afraid to speak a dangerous thing into existence. A cart loaded with salami and peaches followed behind them.

As soon as they left, Ludovico locked himself in his studio to write Ginevra a poem:

Your dress is brown

Your skin like down

Your friend is just fine

But you must be mine

Ludovico at least had the good sense to be embarrassed of his poetry, and threw draft after draft into the fire until he decided it would be much easier to just borrow a few lines from Dante. Impatient in his task by this point, he modified them hastily, sent the note out with his servant, and devoted himself to pacing anxiously until Ginevra replied.

Knowing he couldn’t approach Ginevra at the convent, the servant went to the bakery across from Sant’Elisabetta and waited. To pass the time he stuffed himself with bread and flirted with the good wives who came to have their clay-potted suppers cooked inside the bakery’s giant ovens. At last, the bread-bloated servant saw Ginevra exit the convent. He gave the baker a look so he knew to busy himself at the oven, and then went and pressed a letter into her palm. “Read it here,” he said, “and give me your reply straightaway.”

With trembling fingers, she unfolded the note, eyes flying over the words—could this all really be for her?

My Dearest,

That day in the kitchen I felt a marvelous trembling that started on the left side of my chest and spread rapidly throughout my entire body. I raised my eyes and saw that most gracious of creatures, Beatrice. My spirits were overcome by the force of love.

“But this is not for me,” she cried. “This is for some Beatrice!”

The clever servant read the note and realized at once what had happened—in his haste, Ludovico forgot to switch out the name of Dante’s beloved Beatrice for Ginevra.

“Dama, be assured! I would not misdeliver a message of this importance. Beatrice is...a pet name! That’s right, a pet name Ser Ludovico has bestowed upon you, Ginevra, the object of his affection.”

“You swear it?”

“Of course.” The servant already had many lies he must confess; this one did not bother him.

Ginevra’s earlier resolve gave way to the delicious pull of mutual connection. She cut a blank page from her notebook—the notebook Agnesa scraped clean for her to record the magic of the stones—to write back that she always brought eggs to the house on Thursdays, and perhaps if Ludovico requested more custards from his cook, she could come on Mondays as well. He wrote back right away and said that custard was his favorite dish.

And then it was ritual. Twice a week, they would flirt in the Acciaiuoli kitchens, as the long-suffering cook boiled custard after custard between them. Ludovico would ask egg-related questions, and call her his Beatrice. She would laugh every time. But it was clear to the both of them (and also to the cook) that this was not enough. With the help of Ludovico’s bread-loving servant, they arranged clandestine meetings in ancient chapels where nobody came to pray anymore. They stood close to each other on cracked stone floors, clasping hands and whispering their secrets.

“My family would not be pleased to know of the time I spent with you, a poor person, but I am my own man,” Ludovico would say.

“Well, I’m not just an ordinary peasant,” answered Ginevra, so eager to please she forgot to be insulted.

“Really?” said Ludovico, so eager to please he forgot to sound incredulous.

“Really.” She explained all that Monna Vermilia told her, all that was meant to be her own particular secret—about her blood being special, and how she could work healing wonders with stones.