First Interlude

or, How Things Stand in the Month of Blooming

Apr 10, 2026

Drawing in charcoal, pen, and ink: View of a valley with a town. A group of trees in the foreground — First | Previous | All

The city, it should be said, had moved on.

The market opened at the same hour it always had. The wine merchant’s back room continued its function as the territory’s most efficient informal exchange for information of all varieties, though the information currently circulating had, by general consensus, lost some of its interest now that the principals were evidently fine.

Fine was not, it turned out, very interesting.

So the gossip mill turned its collective eye to the next thing — the Malendan delegation residing in a rented palazzo in Velleia — and waited.

The townhouse on Via Serrano had been lived in for nearly a month and was becoming a home.

Villa Casorio sat on its gentle hill just outside the city — as though it had drifted that far away and then decided it was quite far enough — and looked, from a distance, exactly as it always had.

This was largely true.

The roses were coming into bloom. The fountain on the veranda chortled in the direction of the breeze with the satisfaction of a woman who had seen a great deal and expected to see a great deal more.

Signora Sera made lists.

Petra carried things.

And Matteo had a rose cutting that still was not ready.