The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine De Medici (12 page)

September brought happy news: King François had signed a treaty with Emperor Charles. No French troops would aid the rebel Republic. I celebrated silently when I heard these things yet at the same time was afraid. I remembered the horrific Sack of Rome, when the Emperor’s men ignored orders and laid siege to the Holy City, breaking down the doors of convents and raping nuns.

On the twenty-fourth of October, I sat sewing in my usual spot between Maddalena and Sister Niccoletta, both of them as anxious as Pippa and Lisabetta, who huddled over their work in silence. Sister Antonia’s normally serene visage was troubled.

Beyond the window, the day was gloomy with smoke and the threat of an autumn storm; the alder had lost most of its leaves and stood bleak and jagged.

I was working on a white linen altar cloth; that morning, I fumbled. The floss seemed too thick, the hole in the needle too narrow. My first few stitches were errant and had to be snipped out.

My thimble had worn thin at the spot I exerted the most pressure. Distracted, I gathered too much fabric at once, requiring me to push hard
against the thimble. As a result, the threaded eye of the needle pierced the leather thimble and sank deep into my thumb.

I let go a startled cry and jumped to my feet; the altar cloth dropped to the floor. All the nuns stopped their work to look at me. I gritted my teeth and, with a sensation of nausea, grabbed the needle and pulled hard. It came free, and I stared at the swelling pearl of blood on my thumb.

“Here,” Niccoletta said. She snatched a bit of fluff from a ball of uncombed wool in the sewing basket and pressed it to my thumb.

As she did, a distant boom caused the open windowpanes to shudder. Maddalena and Sister Pippa ran to the window and peered out at the distant plume of smoke rising into the air.

“Back to your work, all of you.” Sister Antonia’s voice was calm. “Take care of it, and God will take care of you.”

The instant she finished speaking, a second boom sounded.

“Cannon,” Niccoletta whispered.

Sister Pippa remained at the window, staring as if she could somehow look beyond the convent walls. “The Emperor’s army,” she said, her voice rising. “Seven thousand men, but we have ten.” She looked at me, her eyes bright with hate. “You’ll never win.”

“Pippa,” Antonia chided harshly. “Sit and be silent.”

The cannon sounded a third time; simultaneously a fourth rumble came from the opposite direction: Florence was surrounded. Lisabetta jumped to her feet and hurried to Pippa’s side.

Pippa’s cheeks were scarlet with fury. “They won’t let you go free.”

“Pippa!” Antonia snapped.

Pippa ignored her. “Do you know what the Republic plans for you?” She sneered at me. “To lower you in a basket over the city walls and let the Emperor’s men blast you to pieces.”

Sister Niccoletta rose urgently. “Pippa, stop it! Stop it!”

“Or to put you in a brothel so you can play whore to our soldiers. Then Clement won’t be so quick to marry you off to his advantage!”

Niccoletta lunged and slapped Pippa full in the face.

“Enough!” Sister Antonia cried. She moved between the two women; she was taller than either, and more formidable. Niccoletta sat back down beside me and put an arm about my shoulder.

Pippa stared defiantly at Sister Antonia. “You’ll regret coddling her. She’s an enemy of the people and will come to a bad end.”

Sister Antonia’s face and eyes and voice were stone. “Go to your cell. Go to your cell and pray for forgiveness for your anger until I send for you.”

In the hostile silence that followed, cannon thundered.

At last Sister Pippa turned away and left. After a dark glance at Antonia, Lisabetta went back to her chair.

“And you,” Sister Antonia said, more gently, to Niccoletta, “will need to make your own prayers when you are in chapel.”

We all sat then, and took up our work again. I had forgotten about my thumb, and in the excitement, the bit of wool had fallen off. When I gathered the altar cloth in my hands, I stained the linen with blood.

The cannonfire continued until dusk. That afternoon, Maddalena’s panicked mother came to the grate and confirmed what we suspected: The Imperial army had arrived and had surrounded the city.

That night I penned a letter to Cosimo Ruggieri. My correspondence with him had been limited to the subject of astrology, but desperation caused me to open my heart.

I am terrified and alone. I was foolish enough to think that the arrival of the Imperial troops would make me safer. But war has rekindled the people’s hatred toward me. I fear the Raven’s Wing alone is not enough to shield me from this fresh danger. Please come, and set my mind at rest.

 

My esteemed Madonna Caterina,

War brings dangerous times, but I assure you that the Wing of Corvus has guarded you well, and will continue to do so. Trust the talisman; more important, trust your own wits. You possess an intelligence uncommon in a man, unheard of in a woman.

Only wait, and let events play themselves out.

Your servant,

Cosimo Ruggieri

I felt abandoned, betrayed. I gave up my books, made no effort at my studies. In the refectory I sat beside Niccoletta and stared down at my porridge; food had become nauseating, unthinkable. I did not eat for three days. On the fourth day, I took to my bed and listened to the shouts of soldiers, the song of artillery.

On the fifth day the abbess came to visit. She smelled faintly of the smoke that permeated Florence.

“Dear child,” she said, “you must eat. What do you fancy? I will see it brought to you.”

“Thank you,” I said. “But I don’t want anything to eat. I’m going to die anyway.”

“Not until you are an old woman,” Giustina said sharply. “Don’t ever say such a thing again. Sister Niccoletta told me what Sister Pippa said to you. Horrible words, inexcusable. She has been reprimanded.”

“She was telling the truth.”

“She was repeating silly rumors, nothing more.”

Exhausted, I turned my face away.

“Ah, Caterina . . .” The bed shuddered gently as she sat beside me. She caught my hand and took it between her own cool ones. “You have been through too much, and these are terrible times. How can I comfort you?”

I want Aunt Clarice,
I began to say, but such words were vain and heart-wrenching.

I looked back at her. “I want Ser Cosimo,” I said. “Cosimo Ruggieri.”

It was enough, Mother Giustina said, that she had tolerated the astrologer’s one visit and, indeed, that she had permitted me to study astrology although it was an inappropriate subject for a woman, much less a young girl. She had conveyed Ser Cosimo’s letters to me only because he had been a friend of the family. But there were rumors of his alliance with unsavory individuals, and of certain acts. . . .

I faced the wall again.

Giustina let go a troubled sigh. “Perhaps earlier, before your aunt died, we should have tried harder. . . . But even then, the rebels watched our every
move, read every letter sent you. We could never have gotten you past the city gates. And now . . .”

I would not look at her. In the end, she agreed to allow further communication.

Within three days—during which I remained abed but allowed myself a few hopeful sips of broth—Sister Niccoletta arrived at my bedside, fresh from outdoors. A bitter storm had brought freezing rain; tiny beads of ice melted upon her caped shoulders. In her hand was a folded piece of ivory paper, and even before she proffered it to me, I knew its author.

My esteemed Madonna Caterina,

The good abbess Mother Giustina has informed me of your malaise. I pray God you will soon find health and cheer again.

There is no cure for these uneasy times save caution and wit, but I would be happy to provide another talisman should it give you comfort. One under the augury of Jupiter would encourage, in some small way, good fortune, but

I crumpled the letter into a ball and, while Sister Niccoletta watched wide-eyed, cast it into the fire.

Afterward, I shunned even broth and water. Within a day, the fever came. Outside my window the wind howled, swallowing the boom of the cannon. The thrill of the sheets against my skin set my teeth chattering; my body ached from the cold, but the blankets gave no warmth. Firelight stung my eyes and made them stream.

I began to lose myself—lose the walls and the bed and the baying wind. I traveled to the stone wall enclosing the rear of the Medici estate, where the stableboy appeared, miraculously alive, the dagger’s hilt still protruding from his neck; we argued a time over the necessity of his death. The scene shifted: I stood on the battlefield where my bloodied Frenchman lay. During my long and vague conversations with him, murmuring crows huddled before the hearth, casting long shadows over the crimson landscape,
speaking senselessly. Perhaps I cried out Clarice’s name; perhaps I cried out Ruggieri’s.

When, tearful, aching, and uncertain, I discovered I was still in my bed at Le Murate, it was still dusk. The light was still too bright, the fire too cold, the sheets too painful against my skin.

Barbara looked down at me, one of my better gowns in her arms.

“You’re better,” she announced. “You should sit up awhile, and be properly dressed.”

The suggestion was so absurd that I, in my weakness, could not reply. I tried to stand but could not, and sat trembling in the chair while Barbara coaxed my body into the gown and laced it up.

My bed was too distant, my legs unreliable. I sank back in the chair, unable to fight off the cup lifted to my lips. Cup and chair and Barbara: These things seemed solid at first glance, yet if I stared too long they began to shimmer.

“Stay there,” Barbara ordered. “I’ll return soon.” She stepped outside and closed the door.

I clutched the arms of the chair to keep from sliding off, and let myself be dazzled by the fire’s sparks of violet and green and vivid blue.

The door opened and closed again. A raven stood in front of the hearth—one tall and caped with a hood pulled forward, obscuring its face. Slowly it lowered the cowl.

I was alone with Cosimo Ruggieri.

I blinked; Ruggieri’s apparition did not fade. He looked older, having grown a thick black beard that hid his pockmarked cheeks. In the hearth’s orange glow, his skin took on a devilish hue.

Delirious, I trembled in my chair. He could not be standing there, of course. The nuns would never permit him behind the cloister walls.

“Forgive me if I have startled you, Caterina,” he said. “The sisters told me you were very ill. I see that they were telling the truth.”

My head lolled against the chair. Speechless, I stared at him.

“Stay just as you are,” he said. “Don’t move. Don’t speak.” He let the cloak slip from his shoulders and drop to the floor. All black, his clothes, his hair, his eyes—there was no color to him at all. On his heart rested a coin-sized copper talisman, unapologetic magic. He moved to the room’s center, just in front of my chair. Facing the fire, he drew a dagger from his belt and pressed the flat of the blade to his lips, then lifted it high above his head with both hands, the tip pointing at the invisible sky.

He began to chant. The sound was melodious, but the words were harsh and utterly incomprehensible. As he sang, he lowered the blade, gently touching the flat to his forehead, then to the talisman over his heart, then to each shoulder, right and left. Again he kissed the dagger.

He then took a step forward to stand an arm’s length from the hearth. He sliced the air boldly, then jabbed the knife in its center and called out a command. Four times he did the same: carving great stars and joining them with a circle. I huddled in the chair, entranced. In my feverishness, I imagined I could see the faint hot-white outline of the stars and circle.

Ser Cosimo returned to the room’s center and flung out his arms, a living crucifix. He called out names: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael.

He turned and knelt beside the arm of my chair, his tone gentle. “Now we are safe,” he said.

“I’m not a stupid child,” I told him. “I won’t be soothed by lies.”

“You’re frightened of the future,” he countered. “Afraid you don’t possess the strength to survive it. Let us learn something of it together.” He tilted his head and looked into me. “A question. Formulate your fears into a question.”

Uneasy, I asked, “A question for whom?”

“A spirit,” he answered. “One of my choosing, for I know those whom I can trust.”

The skin on my arms prickled. “You mean a demon.”

He did not deny it but gazed steadily at me.