presents...
Teodora Donati is a frightening woman. She is physically imposing - tall and strongly built as a younger woman, she is now tall and stoutly built. She drifts through the halls of the upper floors of the palazzo like a silent black ship - silent, at least, until she opens her mouth to unlease a torrent of critical "helpful advice" to whatever unlucky soul she has found. She has ruled over the women's quarters for forty years or more and doesn't seem the least inclined to step aside, especially for such young and scatter-brained wives as have been brought in. A Montaigne and two Vestini girls? Very decorative, she's sure, but what can they do? Teodora is a Lachesis, a Sorte adept. She has gotten to that rather impressive level of power through frequent, strenuous use of her abilities - to the point that she willingly courts Fate Lashes. Power cannot be increased, she reasons, unless one tests one's limits. She bears the old and faint scars almost everywhere on her body, and goes heavily veiled as a result. She is no softer with the training of her own daughter, Anna - either in the lessons of sorcery or of duty and etiquette. She is quite determined to make her daughter into a Good Vodacce Woman and is so far pleased with the results. She holds Anna up as an example of correct behavior to the other women in the house. She has been oddly reluctant to intrigue against her husband's bastard son Antonio. In fact, she even exercises her powers on his behalf, and counsels her sons against their plotting. Whether she does this for simple family harmony, for a vow made to her husband, or for some advantage she gets from Antonio is not known, but is a subject for speculation both within and beyond the family. Not long after Angela's ghost first appeared, Antonio and Teodora had something of a violent confrontation, after which he sent her to the family's country estate. The experience, followed that night by the loss of her eldest child, seems to have broken a good deal of her formerly indominable spirit. The spiteful old witch managed to put in a few good kicks before her end. She weakened Marco's Rods to his father, knowing full well the Cups to Francesca would likely overtake it. She offered Gianina a Cups blessing, hoping it would lead the young woman to romantic mischief. While Gianina stayed loyal to her husband, Teodora's tinkering with Marco's strands more than avenged her on Antonio. Since she was apparently fated to kill Pietra, Father Donati tried to have her killed first. The magic of the Knot conspired to preserve the strega's life against all odds, though. Bernardo, trying to cover for Angelo, nearly started a war with the Masacci; Salvador's negotiations prevented it, but Bernardo sternly warned Angelo not to try any such thing again. With Angelo and Pietra heading for Mondavi Island, and Teodora still in comatose, it wouldn't be critical for a while anyway. They'd find a solution that didn't involve matricide. Prince Mondavi, informed that Teodora was Knotted to his son's fiancee, put a contract out on her. But before that could be fulfilled, the Donati travellers returned. That night, Pietra tried to reverse the Knot and nearly died of it; Teodora, still too weak to stop her physically, tried to stop her sorcerously and did die of the Lashes that she took.
Teodora's most important strand was a King of Cups to her dead daughter, Angela. She had the Misled Arcana.
Photo Credit: "Elisabetta Gonzaga," Raphael, 1505.
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