Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.
I’m sharing from my alternative history, with the working title A Dream of Peacocks. It starts on May Day 1274, when Dante met his great love and muse Beatrice Portinari, and will give them an eventual happy ending, with lots of Sturm und Drang.
This comes shortly after last week’s excerpt, when Dante, newly widowed, found Beatrice walking down the street alone at night. When she collapsed outside his house, he picked her up and immediately realized she has a high fever. She said her husband beat her before leaving for Cyprus on business, and that he also discovered and destroyed the herbal concoctions she secretly used for birth control.
Now comes an even more shocking revelation.
“You’re safe here, Bice,” I said in a shaking voice. “I won’t let de ’Bardi take you away when he returns. If I have to, I’ll hide you in another city until you’re widowed. Maybe your father will agree to help with getting an annulment.”
“He thinks I’ve been committing adultery with you.” Her voice had faded to almost a whisper. “That’s why he beat me.”
I almost dropped her upon hearing this revelation. Of all the things anyone could believably accuse me of, adultery was beyond the beyond. Beatrice and I had never been alone during her entire marriage, and when we exchanged words at church, in the street, or at her family’s celebrations to which I was invited, we only spoke of mundane, respectable things.
The ten lines end here. A few more follow to finish the scene.
Not one personal word suggesting an inappropriate relationship passed our lips, though almost everyone in Fiorenza knew we’d been close friends since childhood. Neither did we send letters to one another. Perhaps the look of adoration in my eyes betrayed my true feelings, but there was no other evidence which would prove such an accusation.
“Francesco, Tana, come inside,” I called through the back door. “We’ll have to stargaze another night. A terrible calamity has occurred. There’s no time to explain.”
My siblings ran into the house and stopped abruptly when they saw me carrying Beatrice.
“Can we do anything to help?” Tana asked.
“You can summon Galfrido and ask him to fetch Dr. Salvetti. Tell him it’s urgent.”